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Bnn V 

Gopyiiglit 

C0EHRIGHT DEPOSIT. 











THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 




THE HOUSE ON 
SMITH SQUARE 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 


THE HOUSE ON CHARLES STREET 

P). ASK . ; 6LvVYM 5U' l 

/V. 'v'v v * \ 

11 




NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD & COMPANY 

1923 

CirtoM % 





Copyright, 1923, by 
DUFFIELD & COMPANY 






©Ci.A6!) G 74 5 


Printed in U. S. A. 


MAR 13 '23 




CONTENTS 


Falmouth 

BOOK I 

• • • • , • 0 • * \ •“ t 1 


BOOK II 


Wroxeter Old House 47 


London 

BOOK III 

. ... 145 


Epilogue 


285 







BOOK I 
FALMOUTH 


1 


CHAPTER I 


“Geokge— do look at her now! Surely you 
agree that she cannot he English!” 

Although Miss Rendall had lowered her voice 
and made but an imperceptible movement of 
the head in the direction of the person who in¬ 
terested her, yet there was an eagerness about 
her manner which caused her brother amuse¬ 
ment. They had more than once discussed the 
question of Mrs. Ashburnham’s nationality and 
so far he had not seemed to be aware of the 
subtleties which Mildred was so fain to read 
in that lady’s appearance. He lifted his eyes 
now from his book to study the figure as it 
walked slowly away from them across the ter¬ 
race towards the sea. Yes—he was willing to 
acknowledge that there was nothing English 
in the ’tall slenderness, the slim shoulders, the 
long waist, narrow foot and small, fine head 
with its black hair a marvel of simple arrange¬ 
ment. These were not English as he knew the 
type: nor was her plain, filmy, black frock, the 
absence of chains and ear rings and gew-gaws 
of jet, silver or gold. Ever since they first 


4 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


noticed Mrs. Ashburnham, she had worn but 
one and the same ornament, and that was a 
string of old-fashioned oval garnets set in pale, 
indented gold and in hue a deep wine-red. 
This necklet had been the subject of their talk 
before to-day—Mildred contending that its color 
gave denial to that vague suggestion of mourn¬ 
ing conveyed by the rest of Mrs. Ashburnham’s 
apparel, — George insisting meanwhile, that 
mourning or no mourning, the lady knew that 
it was just the most becoming thing she could 
have worn and exactly calculated to bring out 
her delicate pallor and set off her large, dark 
eyes. Now, when standing some yards away 
from them, she turned her head—the sun caused 
the stones to burn for one instant round her 
throat in a thin crimson line, completing the 
already exotic impression. George Kendall re¬ 
ceived it and acquiesced. “All right/’ he 
agreed, comfortably, “I can see what you mean 
if that is any good to you. We’ll settle it that 
she’s French if you like.” 

“Or American!” 

“Or American.” 

He turned back to his book and was soon 
contentedly lost in it. His sister let hers rest 
unopened in her lap. The slender, black-clad 
woman’s figure, quietly gazing seaward with the 
blood-red line sparkling about its throat, still 
held Mildred’s attention. She was imaginative 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 5 

and it had for some reason caught her imagina¬ 
tion. 

After a moment, Mrs. Ashburnham walked 
across the lawn to disappear down a flight of 
steps leading to the beach. Miss Rendall was 
obliged to find something else to occupy her 
mood of idleness. 

The checkerboard marble terrace of the Fal¬ 
mouth Hotel was set out with green tables and 
tall palms in green tubs, whose stiff leaves 
rustled in the mild September breeze. A flat 
patch of greensward extended the level to a 
boundary of box hedges and shrubs that were 
faintly aromatic. The steps, down which the 
lady had vanished, led to a road, while a further 
flight on the other side dropped thence to a 
beach of rough, white sand. Beyond, one of 
the boldest of the Cornish headlands reared its 
bulk against the waves. At the right was the 
harbor entrance, defined by the cottages and 
steep-roofed buildings of the town. The sea 
hung before them a purple-blue curtain with a 
silver fringe of haze on it, sparkling in the sun¬ 
shine and swaying delicately up and down the 
beach. Very indistinct, very distant, there moved 
on the horizon the strange shapes of unfamiliar 
craft, bringing to mind the sinister activities 
and mysterious terrors hidden behind that blue 
curtain. Miss Rendall remembered them with 
a contraction of the heart and thus was recalled 


6 


THE. HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


to her companion. She studied him with a new 
sense of criticism. 

George Rendall presented a figure with which 
England was by this time sufficiently familiar, 
that of a tall, wiry, high-shouldered man, with 
a big-featured face, luminous eyes and a non¬ 
committal mouth, wearing the trig, not to say 
wooden, uniform of the United States Army. 
This uniform suited him unaccountably well, so 
well that his sister could not lose her first 
bewilderment at the professional cock of 
George’s service cap. There seemed nothing 
to connect it with the George of two years ago, 
that George who went tranquilly to his office 
in a blue serge suit, from a house at Hempstead, 
Long Island,—that George to whose mind the 
word Europe bore a holiday connotation, pleas¬ 
antly removed from the business of life; that 
very George who grew perfervid only over base¬ 
ball matches, Presidential elections and the state 
of the cotton market! Mildred still wondered 
that he was the same man who at thirty-five had 
been making a very large income because he took 
no holidays, beyond a six-week’s trip every other 
summer and an occasional Saturday at golf— 
the same who detested killing things! What un¬ 
perceived stratum had lain hid in George and had 
come to the surface in the announcement (in 
the spring of 1916) that he intended to spend 
his summer in an officers’ training-camp? Of 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 7 

course lots of men were doing it, but they were 
younger. One would not have reminded George 
of this fact for the world—and one somehow 
remembered Uncle Henry who enlisted in 
Grant’s Army at fifty-seven,—but still! The 
personality they knew as George had been so 
seldom moved toward new things; yet here 
he was—on January 31, 1917, to be exact, un¬ 
folding his morning paper with the medita¬ 
tive observation: “Well, I guess it’s up to me!” 

Mildred herself had been the first of the two 
to cross the ocean. She had gone over with one 
of the first Red Cross units and had been thor¬ 
oughly disgusted when her post was assigned 
in England and not in France. But she had 
worked very hard in London and this was her 
first leave just as it was her brother’s. He 
had gone direct to France and to the Front, 
and his sister even yet did not know what the 
service exactly was in which he had received 
both his wound and commendation from a num¬ 
ber of people. In fact, there were moments in 
which Mildred felt that she had travelled down 
to Cornwall with a person she only slightly 
knew. The entire proportions of life for this 
person—the relative values—had so shifted that 
Mildred found herself during their daily inter¬ 
course constantly at sea. This was a George 
who never even glanced at the financial col¬ 
umns of their American newspaper, and who 


8 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


spent his leisure reading strange books on the 
technique of destruction. This George was 
meticulous where he had been careless and care¬ 
less where he had been meticulous—made the 
most incredibly savage remarks in the most 
matter-of-fact way and was strangely indifferent 
to his past gods. It was rather perplexing, 
and thus Mildred had welcomed her brother’s 
vaguely expressed admiration for a fellow- 
guest of the hotel as furnishing a topic of mutual 
interest. Up to the present they had learned of 
this lady nothing but the name, which, though 
sonorous, had conveyed to them, being strangers, 
very little. 

Meanwhile the palms rustled, and Miss Ken¬ 
dall fell to wondering how they survived, even 
in Cornwall, the English chill. A distant 
hooting came from a little boat entering the 
harbor. By and by, Mrs. Ashburnham appeared 
on the path leading from the beach, crossed 
the lawn with dragging step and vanished into 
the hotel. Her passing gave Mildred a feeling 
of restlessness: with an excuse to her brother 
she rose and followed the stranger. As she went, 
she looked back with renewed surprise at the 
tranquillity expressed by his reading figure. 
George had certainly acquired a new and sin¬ 
gular patience, in which there was no trace re¬ 
maining of the New York George Kendall. 

Her chase of Mrs. Ashburnham was due to 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 9 

a caprice of boredom. There was nobody else 
in the place in whom one could take the slight¬ 
est interest. The array of fat old ladies with 
their knitting-bags was hardly more diverting 
than the groups of convalescent soldiers which 
George had especially requested they should 
avoid during his brief holiday. Her curiosity 
about the only person anywhere near her age 
was entirely natural. 

It was easy—on pretence of some enquiry 
concerning the mails—to follow Mrs. Ashburn- 
ham at the desk of the manageress. Had this 
been a hotel at home, Mildred thought, nothing 
could have been made more easy for her than 
the first steps to an acquaintance. The custom 
of introducing hotel guests to one another which 
at home she had laughed at and reprobated as 
“thoroughly vulgar,’’ began to appear in the 
light of a nice, cordial custom. There is 
nothing like War and exile to shift one’s es¬ 
timate of the vulgarities. Mildred resented the 
fact that a few, simple enquiries about a 
stranger should be made so purposely difficult. 

Perhaps the manageress felt the appeal in 
the wistful face, the eager girl’s eyes. She 
had a remarkably stiff back and a cold gaze 
which seemed perpetually afraid of being taken 
advantage of. Still, when she supplied Miss 
Rendall with stamps, she did reply to her 
embarrassed and halting questions: 


10 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

“Mrs. Ashburnham, madam! . . . Oh to be 
sure she is English. Colonel Ashburnham was 
one of our heroes. You have heard of him no 
doubt ! ” 

Mildred humbly acknowledged her ignorance 
and felt it. 

“Only fancy! I should have thought that 
even in the States they would have heard of 
Colonel Ashburnham . . . He had the Y. C. and 
the D. S. 0.—everything! Dead! Oh certainly, 
madam! He had been drowned last spring in 
the Channel when a transport was torpedoed. 
The king had written to Mrs. Ashburnham a 
beautiful letter .... she looks very much 
crushed, doesn’t she, madam!’’ 

Miss Rendall acquiesced, though privately she 
did not think that Mrs. Ashburnham looked par¬ 
ticularly crushed; and she only excused the 
garnets in her own mind by supposing them to 
have been a parting gift of the dead hero. It 
was exciting to have discovered so much and 
made up for her being obliged to avow that she 
had been quite mistaken in the lady’s nation¬ 
ality. All this she poured out breathlessly to 
George—to whom she had at once flown back 
with her information—and her cheeks grew quite 
pink, so that she actually roused him to listen 
and light a fresh cigar. They chatted about 
Mrs. Ashburnham, off and on, for the rest of 
the afternoon, while strolling about the beach 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 11 


or the crooked, stony streets and if George 
wondered a little at his sister’s absorption in 
the subject, he was not at all unsympathetic; 
on the contrary a very pleasant look came into 
his eyes as they rested on the girl. No one 
knew better than he the power of trifles during 
a re-action from one’s task, concerned as it 
perpetually was with the grim topics of suffer¬ 
ing and death—and nothing could be more 
healthy than that Mildred’s vital, and ever pres¬ 
ent interest in people should rise to its natural 
place in her mind. He was himself fully con¬ 
scious of a similar tendency. 


CHAPTER II 


When one is absolutely bent— 44 hell-bent ’ 1 as 
George put it—on making an acquaintance, even 
in a land where people seemed to move about 
behind a ten-foot wall with glass atop and a 
sign to 44 keep off,” even then things are apt to 
arrange themselves sooner or later, to the de¬ 
sired end. Miss Rendall kept her eye on Mrs. 
Ashburnham’s movements for a day or two 
without results. She saw that Mrs. Ashbum- 
ham received a good many letters, long, thick 
ones on many sheets closely written, and that 
she sat about tranquilly enough and turned a 
dreamy gaze upon the curving sea. So seldom 
did she open the book she carried that Mildred 
began to think the manageress might be right 
after all and that Mrs. Asburnham might be 
more 44 crushed” than appeared. The impression 
she had conveyed at first sight, of slender and 
composed distinction touched with intelligence, 
was heightened as one watched her move about 
among the other people in the hotel. The Ren- 
dalls had spent a week at Falmouth when George 
heard that certain fellow-officers—friends of his 
—were billeted in the neighbourhood. A great 

deal of clumsy and complicated telephone com- 

12 


IS 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

munication followed, with the result that they 
arrived to carry him off for the day to the 
large camp which they occupied in the direction 
of St. Ives. 

Mildred watched his departure from her 
window, with that same feeling of strangeness 
that so often of late swept over her moods. 
She was too completely the American girl to 
have grown used to being left behind on such 
an excursion—at home, of course, she would 
have been included. Here, it had never been 
suggested as a possibility, so readily had George 
acquired the habits of this man’s-world. His 
sister leaned out to get a good view of the 
group in the car—that long, rakish, powerful 
thing under the conduct of a military chauffeur, 
who looked as proud as a peacock of the big 
“U. S.” painted on the side. Two or three 

it 

young men occupied the seats, all of them were 
clean-shaven, wore eye-glasses under their leath¬ 
ern vizors and bore an expression of solemnity 
which again filled the watching Mildred with 
that helpless sense of change. All four looked 
exactly alike, though she knew that Pratt came 
from Bangor, Maine, and that Ingalls had never 
before quitted his native State, Kentucky; and 
when George climbed in and sat down between 
them he looked exactly like the others, and all 
three, so she disgustedly reflected, looked like 
imitations of General Pershing. 


14 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

She watched the car glide away down the 
driveway out of sight and then betook herself 
to the beach, with the vague hope in her mind 
that she might fall in with Mrs. Ashburnham. 
But there was no such person sitting or stand¬ 
ing on the empty stretch of sand. 

Mildred Rendall walked along the water’s 
edge in the direction of the headland. She 
felt not a little lonely and homesick. After all, 
this was September — and at home she and 
George would have been getting ready for a 
few days motoring in the Berkshires and an 
over-Sunday with their friends—the Murray 
Robertsons, at Lenox. At home she had always 
been his chosen companion for these expeditions 
and his pet name for her had been the 11 pleasure 
dog.” The hills were all afire with scarlet and 
yellow, the nights had a keen and tonic touch. 
The soft air, here, mild and equable, vaguely 
irritated her; George as a khaki-clad imitation 
of General Pershing irritated her also. No: 
she wasn’t proud of him: she wished that he 
and all the rest of them would give it up and 
go home where they belonged and put on white 
flannels and never think of gas or bombs again! 
No: she didn’t want to stay on all winter and 
work for the cause—she suddenly felt that she 
never wanted to see another uniformed woman 
in the whole course of her life. She wanted to 
go home, home to her mother and to her sister 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 15 

and the babies. She wanted to go to the Horse 
Show and to the opening night of the opera with 
Farrar and Caruso. She wanted—oh how she 
wanted! a walk in front of the shop windows 
on Fifth Avenue, with all the lovely new clothes 
in them. What was the use of staying on here? 
The Germans were retreating; why should 
George simply stay on to get killed? 

Just as this melancholy train of thought was 
fast plunging Mildred into a most unwonted 
depression of spirits — it was suddenly quite 
driven out of her head by the sight of a 
crimson something sparkling on the sand, a 
yard or so away from her. She darted for¬ 
ward and yes! there at her feet lay Mrs. Ash- 
burnham’s garnet necklet! Mildred stood still, 
holding it, quite stunned by the pleasant sense 
that the key to this door she so desired to open 
lay at last in her possession—when there came 
a faint cry behind her and she turned to see 
the owner of the lost jewel, running towards 
her and waving—face and eyes alight. 

“Oh, you have it!” cried Mrs. Ashburnham, 
“Oh, I am glad!” 

She panted after her run, her whole face 
vividly moved—half laughing at her anxiety and 
its relief. 

“Oh, how fortunate!” she repeated, “I had 
just discovered it was gone—and I looked every- 



16 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


where in my room before coming out here. How 
lucky that it should have been you!” 

“It lay right here on the sand,” said Miss 
Rendall, as pleased as she. “Luckily, it has 
fallen on this dry patch so that it did not sink 
in. The stones flashed in the sunlight—they’re 
very pretty.” 

“Aren’t they?” said Mrs. Ashburnham. “Of 
course garnets have not much value, I believe, 
but, you see, this was given to me by a dear, 
old friend, in her last illness. She died only 
a couple of months ago and she was my first 
English friend. I do cherish it—I wouldn’t 
have lost it for anything in the world! I am 
so much obliged to you!” 

“But I did nothing—it simply lay there in 
front of me.” 

Mrs. Ashburnham however, repeated her grati¬ 
tude with as much animation and rapid speech 
as Mildred herself would have used. When her 
face lit, the fine, thin arch of her eyebrows 
curved up, her delicate mouth smiled showing 
her teeth; she looked very charming, very young, 
younger than they had thought. She could not 
be a day over twenty-six. 

“My old friend chose it for me among all 
her ornaments,” she continued walking beside 
Miss Rendall, “she wanted me to wear it be¬ 
cause I am dark. She thought it would be 
becoming. ’ ’ 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 17 

“It is very becoming,” said Mildred, fas¬ 
cinated, awaiting, yet not quite daring to ask 
the meaning of a phrase which the other had 
just spoken. 

“I have lived with her, you see, ever since 
my first coming to England—I had stayed there 
until I married,” continued Mrs. Ashburnham. 

“Then you are not English!” Mildred ven¬ 
tured with beating heart and imploring eyes. 

Sidney Ashburnham had dwelt so long away 
from that outspoken interest in another person 
which is the prerogative as well as the custom 
of the New World—that it gave her a momen¬ 
tary shock, as if it had been illbred. But the 
eager face turned towards her aroused sleeping 
memories. She recalled what was really meant 
and answered it accordingly. 

“No more than you are, except by marriage,” 
she replied. “I was born within twenty miles 
of Boston.” 

“I knew it! I was sure of it! I told my 
brother so!” cried the triumphant Miss Rendall. 

The two young women sat down side by side 
on the sand and plunged into conversation. 

“So he’s your brother and not your hus¬ 
band!” asked Mrs. Ashburnham, surprised at 
herself for being moved to a question so directly 
personal. 

“You thought George and I! . . . Oh, how 
very funny! We’ve always been great friends, 


18 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


but we must have seemed a strangely inde¬ 
pendent couple, if you had that idea! . . . 

This is George’s first leave and I took a holiday 
to be with him. He’s been wounded, you see, 
and he’s worked tremendously hard in France. 
So we came down here to rest.” 

‘ 4 It’s wonderful to see them everywhere as 
one does nowadays—our men, I mean. When 
I remember how we waited and waited—how I 
wondered if they were ever coming.” 

“Then you have been living here since before 
we came in?” 

The face turned towards Mrs. Ashburnham 
was that of a handsome girl in her early twen¬ 
ties, with brown eyes and hair with reddish 
lights in it. Major Rendall having said that 
he was “sick of the sight of an uniform,” his 
sister had, not unwillingly, left hers in London. 
Her dress was fashionable, her personality suf¬ 
ficiently disarming: her voice, though unmis¬ 
takable, was harmonious; while her eyes waited 
on her companion, with a deference wholly flat¬ 
tering. Yet Mrs. Ashburnham’s impulse was 
to evade the explanation which the other 
awaited so eagerly in that friendly fashion. 
That she did not evade it was due to sensitive¬ 
ness. She did not wish to seem un-American or 
out of touch with another social habit. So she 
answered: 

“Yes, indeed, long before I came over to 


19 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

take a European trip, with a college friend of 
mine—in June 1914. We were caught in the 
panic in Switzerland and had a horrid time 
getting to England. By that time the whole 
thing got hold of me. So I stayed on and my 
friend sailed home without me. She came back 
later: she’s in France now, doing such splendid 
work. ’ 9 

“I envy her,” said Mildred, with a little sigh, 
“that’s what I longed to do—but they kept 
me in England.” 

Mrs. Ashburnham looked sympathetic and 
Mildred hastened to return to her story. “I 
wonder a little your family didn’t mind your 
staying on.” 

“I haven’t any. Both my parents are dead 
so really there is nobody to mind. First I 
worked in a hospital—not nursing—the office 
part. Then I became private secretary to a 
Member of Parliament and kept that position 
until I was married.” 

“It must have been awfully interesting?” 

“Indeed it was.” 

Mrs. Ashburnham fell silent, and Mildred felt 
that to pursue her experience in detail might 
be intrusive. She too, therefore, turned her 
gaze upon the mauve and silver ocean upon 
whose waters the noontide sun was glittering. 
A dim ship passed over the edge of the horizon 
and both their eyes followed it. 



20 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“Haven’t you felt at all homesick?” Miss 
Rendall asked, half shyly. “When I see a ship 
like that, I often feel as if I couldn’t Wait.’* 

“Homesick?” repeated Mrs. Ashburnham, as 
if the thought were a new one. “No, I can’t 
say I ever feel homesick.” 

“Well, I love England myself,” the other has¬ 
tened to assure her, “and I enjoy my work, 
though, of course, I’d far rather be in France. 
I like London and people have been kind to me. 
But other girls I know don’t like it at all—they 
feel strange here and not at all happy.” 

“How odd!” remarked Mrs. Ashburnham; 
and the two words, in her slightly wondering 
tone, suddenly removed her worlds away from 
Mildred Rendall. “Of course I suppose if I 
were in your place,” the latter ventured, “I 
shouldn’t be so eager to sail for home when 
the autumn comes.” 

“The States, after all, are not my home any 
longer,” was the other’s quiet comment as she 
folded her long hands together and looked 
gravely at her companion. 

“Well, it seems now as though we—George 
and I, I mean, will be getting back before 
Christmas, anyhow,” Mildred said, after a 
pause. 

And Mrs. Ashburnham nodded, but a little 
absently. 


CHAPTER III 


There was no doubt that the meeting with Mrs. 
Ashburnham added an element of novelty to the 
latter half of the RendalPs holiday. Both had 
been on the verge of being bored; Mildred not 
a little homesick; and the acquaintance had 
served to revive their zest in the daily business 
of life. Just why this should have been so was 
not altogether easy to determine, although both 
agreed that there was something fascinating 
about Mrs. Ashburnham. She had a certain in¬ 
tensity underlying her reserve—which was 
marked—and it became soon apparent that she 
had a high degree of intelligence. Evidently 
also, she had potential high spirits—although 
they were temporarily clouded by sorrow—which 
lifted her often into the mood of joie de vivre; 
while she displayed an adventurous attitude 
towards life which was full of interest for her 
less imaginative compatriots. This had come 
about from the fact of her having been tossed 
like a piece of seaweed from experience to 
experience; as she said, she was never sure upon 
what strange shores the tides of life were going 
to cast her next. 


ax 



22 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


This situation alone, to Americans of George 
and Mildred’s type, who are rooted and bound 
to place and task by the hundred bonds of 
duty and regular habit—which only a world 
cataclysm could have loosened—made her ex¬ 
tremely romantic. However, her social experi¬ 
ence in England seemed unaccountably wide 
and included many interesting people in the 
political world of whom the brother and sister 
knew nothing but the names. If at first they 
rather wondered how and why she had come 
to acquire this acquaintance, they soon accepted 
the fact that it was due wholly to the exceptional 
quality of her personality. Mrs. Ashburnham 
possessed just that little touch of vibrating 
response to and excitement about life, which is 
above all things the most attractive in a woman, 
especially when it is expressed by a sensitive 
mouth and large, shining dark eyes. Her charm 
was acknowledged by them both to be definite, 
though elusive, and George showed its effect 
on him by his reluctance to discuss it with his 
enthusiastic sister. Mildred, on her part, could 
now behold the great ships go by into the west 
without longings. She wrote pages and pages 
to her mother about her new friend and so 
poured out the admiration which her brother 
seemed anxious to evade. 

As for Sidney Ashburnham, these were the 
first fellow-countrymen she had encountered for 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 23 

four years and they raised in her an interest sym¬ 
pathetic as well as critical. In her absorption 
in the War and in those who were fighting it, 
she had for a long time felt very cold towards 
her own people and not desirous to meet any 
of them. At first this indifference had angered 
her; later their cool assumption of bearing the 
whole burden of War had irritated one who 
knew what such burdens really were, when loss 
was added to them. But this pair were doing 
their duty—even as she herself saw it—and 
showed nothing but a steadfast humility in the 
act. Particularly was it amusing to note in 
Mildred the identical attitude toward England 
and the English, the same mistakes and mis¬ 
understandings, the same puzzled surprise at 
the immutability of custom, which had been 
Sidney’s own four years before. When she 
heard Mildred’s wonder at an English Sunday 
or watched her smilingly array herself for 
Church in a bright-colored frock, quite unaware 
of the offence against decorum thus committed; 
when she heard her surprise that people who 
were satisfied to wait on themselves at break¬ 
fast, should consider it a disgrace if they were 
obliged to do it at dinner—Mrs. Ashburnham 
was irresistibly reminded of her own first year 
in the United Kingdom. As regards George, 
one did not tend to define one’s feeling concern¬ 
ing him, further than that it was one of com- 


24 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


plete confidence. He had a way of fixing his 
eyes on her—they were reddish-hazel eyes like 
his sister’s only their look was penetrating and 
steadfast, where hers was receptive and seek¬ 
ing—of fixing on her eyes that seemed anxious 
to understand. In talk, he was shrewd, kind 
and unfailingly responsive: his criticism, rarely 
given, was sympathetic. If he did not compre¬ 
hend the English, at least he wished to do so. 
One felt his quiet strength—and it reminded 
Mrs. Ashburnham of another soldier she had 
known, one who also took life, its dangers and 
its chances, entirely for granted. Yes: surely 
he was to be trusted and very much to be liked: 
and Sidney found herself in a remarkably short 
space of time consulting him on some of the per¬ 
plexities of her widowhood. 

4 ‘You see, my marriage lasted for so short 
a time,” she told him, on the afternoon they 
went across the harbor to see Pendennis Castle, 
“less than three months in all—that I never 
had time to go into things properly with my 
husband. We were so absorbed in the War—and 
life was so uncertain and hazardous—somehow 
it never seemed worth while. I have a trustee 
at home near Boston, but he’s an elderly man 
and rather helpless, it strikes me, in the face 
of all these new conditions. I have written him, 
but I cannot seem to find out what I want to 
understand. ’ ’ 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 25 

Kendall answered her questions—they related 
to the new taxation and to the effect of War 
measures on investments—and told her very 
clearly all that she wanted to know. Mrs. Ash- 
burnham was grateful and said so. ‘ 4 After all, 
it’s an odd position,” she commented. “I can¬ 
not make up my mind to transfer all I own in 
the world to this country. Yet I suppose I 
ought. In law, I am an Englishwoman, am I 
not?” 

“Undoubtedly you are.” 

“Then I suppose it is my duty. But things 
here are not so flourishing—though what Harry 
left, with the special pension they allow me, is 
enough, actually to live on, if not comfortably. 
I might let my income from the States alone, 
if I had to. But then suppose things get worse? 
Mr. Hansell, he’s my trustee, thinks I ought 
to come home.” 

“I think so too. Certainly before transferring 
any property you ought.” 

“I don’t quite see why.” 

Major Randall explained quite seriously, not 
at all realizing what he really felt, which was 
that any lady—at least any lady so delightful 
as the speaker—ought to go to the States and 
stay there: 

“You’ve given the reason yourself, Mrs. Ash- 
burnham. England has borne the weight and 
economically shows plainly the strain of it in 


26 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


exhaustion. Things are not flourishing—not at 
all. The laboring classes are sullen: they’ve 
been very badly handled, first not trusted and 
then molly-coddled; and they mean to have 
things their own way. That means trouble in 
the investment world. It’s a poor time to in¬ 
vest money here, believe me.” Then as he saw 
her reflective face, he continued: 

44 ’Tisn’t that I’m knocking anything, or criti¬ 
cizing the English . . . when it comes to fight¬ 
ing this War, they know about that and I don’t, 
and I’m going to learn from them. I guess its 
every American’s business just now to learn 
what England can teach. But when it comes 
to Business—the industrial and economic world 
—that’s different. It’s something of less im¬ 
portance at the moment but I know about it 
and I’m giving you my opinion.” 

44 I’m grateful for it,” said Mrs. Ashburnham. 
4 4 Mr. Hansell says the same, but not so con¬ 
vincingly. He wants me to return as soon as 
I can and meanwhile to save as much] as I pos¬ 
sibly can. He’s not at all cheerful about it and 
he seems to forget that this is my home.” 

George disliked the phrase. He asked ab¬ 
ruptly: 44 What sort of investments have you*?” 

4 4 Oh—mortgages and a few good railway 
bonds, more than I can afford to lose .... 
What especially bothers Mr. Hansell, poor dear, 
is a business matter that has come up most 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 27 

unexpectedly. My father, who died when I was 
a child, owned an interest in a company that 
was apparently a failure. It seemed quite 
dead—hasn’t paid a cent for years and years. 
I never even thought about it—it seemed a total 
loss. But now the War has changed all this 
and the factory lias begun to make a profit 
and to show an unexpected earning power.” 

44 What was the business—if you don‘t mind!” 

She explained that it concerned the manufac¬ 
ture of a special substance which had suddenly 
proved to be essential to the conduct of affairs, 
whether at peace or at war; moreover that this 
small plant was the only one at present equipped 
for it in the States. Hearing this, her com¬ 
panion gave a long whistle. 

44 You don’t say so! And you own a majority 
interest ? ’ ’ 

4 4 So it seems—only, the question is, how 
much do I own? The company is to be re¬ 
organized with new capital and Mr. Hansell is 
bothered for fear I may not receive my share.” 

44 Get frozen out in the re-organization? I 
shouldn’t wonder if your Mr. Hansell was 
right. ’ ’ 

44 Do jyou really think so? ... I confess I 
had not taken him very seriously—it seems 
rather improbable that anything could come out 
of it after all these years!” 

4 4 You forget this War, Mrs. Ashburnham 


28 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

... it alters everything. It wipes out values, 
or creates them, practically overnight.” 

“Then you thing this might be valuable?” 

“All depends on how it’s handled . . . cer¬ 
tainly it ought to be.” 

“You think I should look into it?” 

He replied almost impatiently: “No ques¬ 
tion, but you ought . . . you may be losing a 
solid little fortune . . . Look here, I tell you 
what we can do . . . I’ve a friend in New York 
who will be sure to know all about this com¬ 
pany there is to know, once he has the facts. 
I’ll write him to-night . . .it’s quite all right, 
y’see, because he’s absolutely straight. I’ll tell 
him to find out what’s doing and let you know.” 

“How good of you—will you really? Look, 
your sister is waving to us . . . . ” 

“But there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll 
have to go home,” George was careful to add 
and she saw the genuine friendliness in his face 
and smiled up to it. He was, she thought, quite 
an unusual man: in ordinary talk acquiescent 
and even diffident, accepting what was said and 
offering his views with deference, while the 
moment the subject touched on affairs, he be¬ 
came firm, clear and even distinguished. To 
him business, industry, economics, had passed 
from rule of thumb into the region of law and 
theory. In this realm he observed currents, 
estimated movements, accumulated data and 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 29 

dealt with its resulting factors in a manner 
having a quality of imagination which showed 
where his mind was at home. Even the intel¬ 
ligent Englishmen, she knew, regarded all these 
matters as wholly unrelated to or outside of 
life, as the concern of experts merely: whereas 
Rendall seemed to regard them as the A. B. C. 
of everyman’s existence—as those very English¬ 
men in turn probably regarded many things 
which Rendall knew nothing about, such as the 
habits of game or the exact moments in which 
one wears a top-hat. Mrs. Ashburnham was 
very much interested. 



CHAPTER IV 


“She doesn’t talk much about the late hero, 
does she?” remarked George to his sister as 
they sat together that evening and waited for 
their new acquaintance to join them for dinner. 

‘ 4 Over here,” Mildred rejoined sagely, “hus¬ 
bands never mention wives nor wives husbands 
—dead or alive. I’ve noticed it often. They’re 
not partners and friends—they’re belongings , 
and one doesn’t talk about one’s belongings. 
They think we are so funny! One of the girls 
at Victoria Street said to me about your friend 
Captain Crosby, that she i spotted him for a 
Yankee because he at once began to tell her 
about his wife’.” 

“That’s all very true . . . but she’s not 
English. ’ ’ 

“Oh but she is, George—in that way at least. 
Why, she’s never told us a thing about the 
people she knows and she knows heaps. You 
know how at home people one meets are always 
talking about their cousins the Smiths or their 
intimate friends the Brown-Jones? One simply 
can’t escape it.” 

His shrug in reply was impatient. “Well, 
Milly, if you ask me, I like our way a great 

30 

% 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 31 

deal better. You know where you are. Over 
here I keep feeling as though I were wandering 
around in a fog, among a lot of nameless shades 
... It makes me nervous not to know some¬ 
thing about the chap I’m talking to. Now this 
fellow Ashburnham—1 'd like to know what sort 
of a fellow he was . . . " 

‘‘Well, I’ve seen his photograph if that's 
any help to you. She has a big one on her 
bureau. ’' 

“Well?" 

“He's quite wonderful!" 

“How do you mean wonderful? Handsome?" 

“Much more than handsome, George. Such 
a vivid, arresting face. He had a big, high- 
bridged nose and long moustaches and a turban 
on his head, and a sword, and medals and dec¬ 
orations all over him. He was more like a 
foreigner than an Englishman—so thin and dark 
you know—so I asked ‘Isn't that some Eastern 
potentate?' and she answered ‘That was my 
husband.' " 

“Did he look like a gentleman?" 

Mildred knew what her brother meant by that 
word, which in his mind held implications quite 
un-English and had nothing whatever to do with 
property or situation. The ideal he evoked, of 
a quiet, forceful well-bred personage in con¬ 
servative clothing, reserved in manner, frank 
and fluent of speech, energetic in action and 


32 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

extremely tender of his women folk—presented 
a contrast which made her laugh outright. 

“He looked like a hero, like a Bayard—” 
she declared scornfully, “his whole personality 
was spirited and picturesque beyond anything 
I’ve ever seen. He must have been simply 
splendid.’ ’ 

George had instinctively felt a dislike to the 
late Colonel Ashburnham and his sister’s enthusi¬ 
asm confirmed it. But he said nothing at the 
moment because their conversation was inter¬ 
rupted by the smiling approach of the lady 
whose affairs had been the subject of it. The 
three went in and dined in great content, chat¬ 
ting with the freedom of compatriots meeting 
in a strange land. Mrs. Ashburnham appeared 
to have laid aside her reserve and began to tell 
them more about her own situation, while she 
questioned Major Kendall concerning American 
affairs. They came to hear all about her little 
income and pension, and how she drew the rent 
of a tumble-down old Manor-house where Harry 
Ashburnham had spent his boyhood. She told 
them also that he had always received in addi¬ 
tion, an allowance from a rich aunt in Derby¬ 
shire, and how her solicitor had urged upon 
her the necessity of making the old lady a visit 
to secure its continuance to herself. She added, 
with a little fastidious gesture, that this idea 
was distasteful and so she had put it off. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 33 

“You see—I am used to being independent,’’ 
she concluded, half-apologetically. 

“You’re American,” declared George, whose 
spirits this speech had somewhat lightened. 

“It’s not that only,” she smilingly answered 
him, “but you see—while I was secretary I 
drew a good salary and got on very well, living 
as I did with my dear old friend, who was so 
good to me and who knew all the thrifty ways 
to do things in this country. It puts one out 
of the humor of cosseting rich old aunties for 
an allowance—that sort of life—now doesn’t it?” 
He emphatically assented and Mrs. Ashbumham 
continued: 

“But it’s this new taxation, it hits every¬ 
body! And to be taxed in both countries-!” 

“Hard luck!” 

“Mr. Hansell, of course, can’t help it—he can 
only go on worrying about that re-organization 
and what I may lose. I suppose I should have 
paid more attention to him.” 

“Why don’t you go right home and see about 
it?” Major Kendall asked her directly enough. 

“Well-” she hesitated, “I don’t know. I 

hadn’t wanted—I hadn’t really thought about it. 
And besides, I could never get a passport.” 

“I think you could. But of course you would 
have to stay there till the end of the War.” 

“Oh, but I couldn’t do that!” 

Mrs. Ashburnham spoke quickly, impulsively, 





34 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

and then, at some thought which had evidently 
underlain this reply—her pale face became sud¬ 
denly swept with a tide of crimson from chin 
to brow. Her companions felt her embarrass¬ 
ment: Mildred adjusted the laces of her own 
pretty evening gown, George looked studiously 
out of the window. There fell a pause after 
which it was easy to talk about something else. 
But George could not rid himself of the feel¬ 
ing that Mrs. Ashburnham did not want to go 
home and was troubled about it—a trouble quite 
subjective and one which she evidently desired 
not to formulate nor define. What could be 
the reason? He was conscious of a marked 
irritation that Mrs. Ashburnham should be or 
consider jherself English. He wished her—now 
that her English husband was dead—to consider 
herself an American. Of course she was Amer¬ 
ican—and she ought to go home to the country 
where—particularly now—there was safety and 
protection for women. The strength of his own 
conviction in the matter never struck him as 
absurd; he was too much occupied in uneasily 
wondering what thought had caused Mrs. Ash- 
burnham’s blush. 

His silence gave his sister a chance, who 
had before felt just a little out of it—and the 
two women were soon laughing together. Then 
Mrs. Ashburnham was led to talk of English 
political life, and Major Rendall, over his cigar, 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 35 

found himself listening to her with wonder and 
respect. How and where had she acquired her 
knowledge? She talked of the divisions of de¬ 
partments and their jealousies; of bureaucratic 
inertia and enemy propaganda, as one who knew 
them by intimate personal experience. If she 
had not met, yet she had seen and heard almost 
every man of political importance in the country 
and she seemed to have watched most of them 
very closely. She knew their personal idiosyn¬ 
crasies and failings as well as all the little stories 
about them. She knew Mr. Lloyd-George’s ex¬ 
citability and the lethargy of Mr. Balfour; she 
knew Mr. Asquith as a bon-vivant, Lord Welden 
as an eccentric, Lord French’s penchant for 
gallantry and Lord Haldane’s fondness for 
metaphysics. All this surprised Rendall who 
had looked upon social England as a shut and 
guarded castle. Perhaps it was natural that 
the wife of an Indian officer should know the 
depth and extent of the rivalry between the 
British and the Indian armies—as well as its 
nearly fatal consequences. But how in the 
world had she come to learn the trade situa¬ 
tion, the abuse of the censorship and its re¬ 
sults regarding the difficulties of certain firms, 
of whose cause very few men in New York 
were aware? Who had told her the actual de¬ 
tails of Sir Hector Menzies’ fiasco on the Somme 
and the present whereabouts of that unfortunate 


36 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

soldier? Even military circles did not know 
these things. And there were moments, when 
George, listening attentively, became aware of 
even deeper knowledge which loyalty hid, show¬ 
ing that she had held the key to Bluebeard’s 
chamber. “Look here,” he remarked to his 
sister after Mrs. Ashburnham had said good¬ 
night, “How does she come to know it all as 
she does, anyway? And in this island, too.” 

“You must remember that she was a private 
secretary for nearly three years,” Mildred re¬ 
minded him; but the explanation failed to 
satisfy George. 

“Pooh! What is a private secretary—when 
all’s said?” he persisted, having the American’s 
estimate of a position which he regarded in the 
light of an intelligent stenographer; together 
with a complete misapprehension of English 
habits of mind:—“No, I don’t understand it.” 

“Well, it’s no business of ours.” 

“Perhaps not, yet it bothers me.” 

“Why on earth should it bother you?” 

George know only one reason why it should 
and did not wish to explain it to his sister. He 
disliked the idea that Mrs. Ashburnham should 
halve such intimate ties in this country as were 
likely to keep her here: he resented—yes, re¬ 
sented was the word—any friendships which 
might have power over her, and which made 
him suspicious as of something concealed. This 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 37 

attitude was unwarranted and ridiculous in an 
acquaintance of not ten days standing; nor could 
George defend it against his own sense of humor, 
much less that of his sister. So he kept silence 
and bade Mildred good-night, rather vexed with 
himself for what he felt to be a childish curiosity 
together with causeless jealousy—for it was no 
less—of Sidney Ashburnham’s past life. 


CHAPTER V 


Life in its social, in its conscious aspect, had 
been the chief preoccupation of the three people 
with whose acquaintance we are, for the time 
being, concerned. They found much, therefore, 
in common and all the more that with each 
of them individual interests had been in neces¬ 
sary abeyance during the past months. Thus 
they passed the pleasantest sort of week to¬ 
gether and arranged to journey up to town 
on the same day, in the train named magnifi¬ 
cently, the Cornish Riviera Express. Major 
Rendall wanted to spend the last few days of 
his leave in town and Mildred’s holiday could 
not be prolonged. Both had suggested an im¬ 
mediate engagement with Mrs. Ashburnham, 
dinner at the Carlton and a play to follow, “by 
way of send-off to George,” as the brave little 
sister put it, and it had been like a dash of 
cold water to hear that Mrs. Ashburnham was 
not staying on in town. 

“Unfortunately, I cannot alter my plans,” 
she said, when they sat talking it over in the 
railway carriage and watching the green velvet 
fields of Devon flash past the windows. “I’ve 
promised to spend these few days with a friend 

38 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 39 

in the country since long before I went to 
Cornwall ... I can’t say how long I shall 
be there but certainly until next week.” 

“Too late,” was George’s brief utterance. 

“-But after that,” Mrs. Ashburnham went 

on, hopefully smiling at Mildred in the corner, 
“I expect to be in town right along and we shall 
see a great deal of each other, I hope.” 

“And how about your going home?” asked 
Major Rendall, with a touch of gruffness. 

“Home? Oh, you mean to the States?” (How 
that innocent little phrase withered George’s 
heart!) “—Well, perhaps I may think about 
that later—only ” She left the sentence un¬ 
finished and after a moment he continued: 

“I wrote Peter Sampson as I said I would 
and told him to cable you if the situation was 
urgent,” (Rendall did not say that he had 
preceded the letter by a cable-message of some 
length and costliness), “but you must not ne¬ 
glect the matter, believe me. Reorganizations 
always need watching: and your absence gives 
the other side a big chance. I understand you 
have an honest agent-” 

“Dear Mr. Hansell—he is scrupulous indeed.” 

“So much the better, but he’s evidently 
bothered and nobody knows nowadays what 
may happen. The news to-day begins to look 
as if there may be an Armistice sooner than we 
thought-” 






40 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

“Does it really?” and “Do let me look!” 
the two women cried, eagerly precipitating 
themselves upon the newspapers and George 
noticed that Mrs. Ashburnham gave him no 
direct answer. Evidently, she was not ready 
to commit herself. 

The news from France was indeed encourag¬ 
ing and they soon fell into talk concerning it, 
and from this to those relations between Eng¬ 
land and the United States which interested 
them so deeply. What were these relations, in 
reality? Was the War leading to a better 
understanding? Rendall thought so: Mrs. Ash¬ 
burnham was very doubtful. Were the States at 
all conscious of the depth and extent of Eng¬ 
land’s effort to comprehend them—or of the 
shift it had caused in her habits and fixed ideas? 

For England, since 1914, the universe had 
turned on a new pivot. The financial centre 
of the banking world had moved from London 
to New York with all the shift in relative 
power which such a change involved. The centre 
of all smartness and gayety, of all luxury and 
chic, had also shifted from Paris to New York. 
All those Americans who previously had made 
their homes in Paris because it was the smart 
social thing to do, or had taken houses in the 
Shires because it was the smart sporting thing 
to do—were clamoring to come home again, be¬ 
cause that was now the smart place to be. A 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 41 

vast alteration in relative importance had taken 
place; a profound sense of insecurity permeated 
Europe, the attention of the leisure classes was 
fixed on the least exhausted country, the one 
where they, personally, were least likely to 
suffer. The reaction of Europe on the American 
which had been the theme of so many novelists, 
had become overnight the reaction of America 
on the European. Temporary, evanescent even 
as this was likely to be, it was a reaction likely 
to have a profound effect upon civilization, the 
social significance of which was yet hidden 
from the observer. George and Mildred were 
hardly even observers, and Mrs. Ashburnham, 
as her style was, felt rather than reasoned about 
these things. The talk between them, there¬ 
fore, was direct and naif, according to their 
lights. “All these people know where the 
money’s going to be for the next fifty years,” 
Rendall commented; “it’s not going to be com¬ 
fortable or safe anywhere in Europe. That’s 
why I want you to come home, Mrs. Ashburn¬ 
ham—the world is bound to have an awful 
headache after all this.” 

“Perhaps that’s why I ought to stay,” she 
answered steadily. 

“But you couldn’t help any,” said George 
gently; “it doesn’t depend on the middle class 
folk like you and me—but on the two ends: 
the labouring classes and the statesmen and 


42 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

Ambassadors and things. They’re the people 
that can help. I see a new Ambassador to 
America, suggested here,” he added, turning 
over the newspaper. “Some chap who’s done 
a lot of good work.” 

“Oh who?” Sidney Ashburnham asked with 
vivid interest. 

“Nobody I knew; but here it it,” and he 
read out: “ ‘Among the names suggested for 
the post of American Ambassador has been that 
of Lord Waveney. It is rumoured that the ap¬ 
pointment is in Government hands and no 
word has yet been given as to whether Lord 
Waveney will accept, in view of the fact that 
his services cannot easily be spared by the 
Foreign Office. Lord Waveney was raised to 
the Peerage last year. He will be remembered 
as Mr. Adrian Romeyne, one of the most bril¬ 
liant diplomats in the Liberal Party, who has 
been entrusted with some of the most delicate 
and difficult missions during the War. He is 
a widower.’ ” 

Mrs. Ashburnham hardly appeared to listen 
to this information, but her face settled into a 
deep stillness, an abstraction so marked that 
George lowered his newspaper to address her. 

“I wonder if he’d be any good—do you hap¬ 
pen to know anything about him?” 

She answered with disconcerting promptitude: 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 43 

“Yes; I knew Lord Waveney very well at one 
time.” 

She stopped, and George, a little puzzled, 
ventured: “You think he’d be a suitable Am¬ 
bassador ?” 

“Oh quite. He’s very brilliant—he’s really a 
remarkable man.” 

“The same style as Lord Reading?” 

“Not in the least.” 

She opened the book that lay in her lap with 
an air of purpose which nobody could fail of 
understanding. Conscious of an unfamiliar vi¬ 
bration in the atmosphere, George stared out of 
the window. It was Mrs. Ashburnham who 
relit the conversation by asking him: 

“In case I should decide to go home—a little 
later on, I mean—can you tell me what steps 
to take—how I should set about it?” 

He responded at once with smiling readiness 
to discuss ways and means, to promise assist¬ 
ance; while all the while his mind was tracing 
a hidden sequence of thought. Just why, he 
could hardly have told, but he had become almost 
certain that Mrs. Ashburnham’s return to 
America, if return she did, would have nothing 
whatever to do with the economic situation of 
Europe or the hazard of her own interests. He 
felt, subtly but delicately, the presence of a mo¬ 
tive more personal, a motive connected with the 
item of news he had just read aloud—the ap- 


44 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

pointment of His Majesty’s Ambassador to the 
States. Waveney — Adrian, Lord Waveney, 
George’s inner self kept repeating tbe name 
with a marked distaste. 

Their books, their talk, their luncheon-basket, 
caused the journey to pass agreeably enough 
and they arrived in London on time during the 
heart of a warm and golden afternoon. The 
Kendall’s had tacitly arranged that they were 
to leave Mrs. Ashburnham at her address—she 
lived somewhere in Mayfair, it appeared—not 
far from Brown’s Hotel—and George prepared 
at once for the struggle to obtain a taxi. But 
their plan was completely shattered, as events 
turned out. No sooner had Mrs. Ashburnham 
set her slender foot upon the platform than 
she was at once approached by a tall and very 
handsome, sturdy gentleman, not especially 
young—with a thin nose, grey moustaches, a 
confident eye and the authoritative air of know¬ 
ing all there was to know. 

‘ 4 Well, my dear,” was his satisfied greeting, 
“so there you are!” 

Mrs. Ashburnham bade a cordial good-bye to 
her fellow-travellers—the while that the tall gen¬ 
tleman, who had secured a porter, was himself 
superintending the collection of her effects. 
There was a good deal of confusion of luggage 
on the platform at Paddington and Major Ken¬ 
dall had all he could do to attend to his own and 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 45 

his sister’s bags and boxes. Notwithstanding 
this and the scarcity of porters, he lost nothing 
of Mrs. Ashburnham’s departure, nor the kind 
smile she gave him over her shoulder as she 
turned away, the tall gentleman protecting her 
on the one side, a porter, heavily laden, on 
the other. George, also, had not failed of no¬ 
ticing how this group was accosted by another 
man evidently a servant, who touched his hat 
as he said to his master: 

“I have the taxi—my lord—this way!” 

The Rendalls had to wait for their own 
conveyance, but they said little as they stood 
side by side on the street. The end of a holi¬ 
day is always depressing and Mildred’s mouth 
drooped at the thought of the morrow. She, 
too, had caught the servant’s words and had 
witnessed the comfortable departure of their 
friend in the decidedly monopolizing care of the 
middle-aged gentleman—nor had she escaped 
that slight disagreeable consciousness of exclu¬ 
sion which such incidents give to the sensitive. 
Of course, one knew the English did not intro¬ 
duce—and she told herself hastily that no one 
at home would think of making introductions 
on a station-platform—but still! 

Once in the cab, however, and rolling along 
in the late, level sunshine, she heard George 
laugh suddenly, jerkily, to himself and glanced 
at him in dismay. 



46 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“She’ll never go home!” George said scorn¬ 
fully in answer to her enquiring look; and Mil¬ 
dred saw his mouth set into a grim line. For 
the first time she was inclined to feel almost 
sorry that they had ever met Mrs. Ashburnham. 


BOOK II 

WROXETER OLD HOUSE 


47 



CHAPTER VI 

On the same afternoon that Mrs. Ashburnham 
and the Rendalls were chatting together in 
friendly fashion while flying along to town in 
the so-called Riviera Express, Lord Waveney 
sat in his library at Smith Square, smoking 
and looking out of the window at the barges 
moving slowly up the river. His house spread 
all about him its pompous silences and formed 
at the moment the subject of his thoughts. 
This large and* beautiful building in the Georgian 
style, of rose-colored brick and black and white 
marble, had been one of the “desires accom¬ 
plished” of which the French saying contrives 
to communicate the full ironic bitterness. It 
had been built with his wife’s money—the wife 
for whom he was wearing a black coat and tie, 
the wife at whose death he had changed his 
habits sufficiently to replace his white pearl 
studs in the evening by black pearl ones. His 
mind kept returning to those weeks when it 
was building—those weeks- when he and she, at 
one for the first and perhaps for the last time 

49 


50 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


in their married life, had busied themselves 
from morning till night over its plans and 
details. The house had meant so much to them 
both. To the wife it was the token of her 
prowess, sign manual and visible witness that 
she had captured a prize, that she had married 
a personage. To the husband it seemed the 
first step on that stairway of ambition which 
he was determined to climb—fit setting for the 
success he meant to win and for those dignities 
which he knew such success would bring him. 

He could have x laughed aloud—only his was 
not that temperament—when he recalled what 
he had intended his house to be. First, he had 
planned a brilliant social life under its roof— 
the sort of life he had read of as occurring 
more often in the London of fifty years ago than 
in the London of to-day. It was to be the focus 
and the nucleus of an intelligent influence, of 
wit and urbanity, of warm and sympathetic hos¬ 
pitality. It was to be the gathering-place where 
clever and well-bred people, great people, and 
people who were going to be great people, were 
to meet and in meeting to start that irresistible 
wave by which he—the master and central figure 
of the house—would be borne high on the shore 
of political power. With his own unusual per¬ 
sonality, combining tact with rare distinction of 
mind—there seemed no heights he could not 
scale—he needed only the proper background 


51 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

—and that background could not be the mere 
dingy spaciousness of the ordinary London big 
house. Times had changed and more was re¬ 
quired than Victorian furniture, Staffordshire 
pottery and feeble essays in water colour. 

So Waveney had budded him a mansion of 
noble dignity and appropriate furnishing: with 
modern offices, with a splendid dining-room 
for those great dinners which were the crown, 
so to speak, of worldly approbation as for the 
smaller, intimate occasions during which its 
sceptre was wielded. There was a garden full 
of mauve and crimson rhododendron, looking out 
upon the tranquil Thames, and a library which 
was to confirm, by its quiet richness, the im¬ 
pression of his own personality. 

“Les desirs acadmplis . . . !” Yes: he could 
have laughed. There it stood, his house, just 
as it had been planned, and all these hopes had 
come to absolutely nothing. Its stately beauty 
and fitness had counted for naught because there 
was no spirit within—because the mistress of 
all was dull and disagreeable, and too lazy and 
self-satisfied to change. 

He had tried his best to teach her but had 
finally given it up as a bad job: she neither 
would nor could learn anything about the world 
he loved. So Waveney, who was far too wise to 
struggle for his wish under the circumstances, 
had never given even one party in his beautiful 


52 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


house. She had asked her friends, who were 
rather like herself, middle-class, censorious, un¬ 
attractive people; but he had not asked any of 
his—and she had resented that. He used it as 
a lodging, because, unless one was so poor as 
to be forced into intimacy, it was well to go on 
living under the same roof with one’s wife, and 
also because for a public man a house in Smith 
Square is “a good address.” 

Then came the War, with its vital absorp¬ 
tions, and all social life sank into abeyance. 
Now she had gone; and things were so changed 
financially and politically, that it was growing 
more doubtful every day whether he could afford 
to go on living in a place which he had come 
to regard as a sort of tomb for his vanished 
hopes. 

Although he thought of her now without bit¬ 
terness, yet Waveney was not concious of any 
feeling of apology toward the dead woman. 
None was, in his opinion, needed. He had been 
a gentle, a tolerant and a patient husband. At 
first and while he was still in love with her 
(she had been a handsome creature in her 
flamboyant way) he had given her a great deal 
of time and attention. It had seemed impos¬ 
sible that she could not fulfil the very slight 
demands of their easy world—where little is 
asked of any woman but to smile! His clear 
sight soon showed him that she retained the 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 53 

tenacious hostility, prejudice and meanness of 
early surroundings. He knew that, had he been 
a shop-keeper, she would probably have made 
him an admirable wife. 

When he found that it was all of no use, he 
did not quarrel with her; he merely withdrew 
himself and tried to forget her. He didn’t 
make her life harder in any way. He continued, 
as she was a shrewd business woman, to consult 
with her at decent intervals. Moreover he re¬ 
mained, technically speaking, faithful to her. 
This was strange, perhaps, because he craved 
sympathy; but he was by nature too fastidious 
to take the passing consolation, which society 
makes so easy for a man of his caste. He made 
War and work his justification, but the real 
reason was one of temperament—a temperament 
rooted, one must not forget, in the austere soil 
of that same middle-class. It was true that he 
had met one woman, who—Ah! but that ex¬ 
quisite moment must be thrust out of memory. 
Yet he was glad that the thought brought with 
it nothing of weakness to regret, particularly 
now, when he contemplated turning a new page. 

Waveney sat still, raising and lowering his 
cigar, fixing his large, calm blue eyes upon the 
slow movement of barges up the river, his long¬ 
fingered hand resting on his knee. His physical 
tranquillity always seemed to aid the clarity and 
quickness of his thought—he drew concentration 


54 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

from his immobility. The man owned what was 
perhaps the readiest apprehension, deepest in¬ 
sight and sanest judgment in English public 
life of his time; and these qualities were the 
more constantly at his service that he never 
fidgeted. In happier circumstances this serenity 
would have been full of sunshine; it gave light 
to tmany as it was. Of such a nature one must 
not expect the fierier qualities, or the tenser 
impulses of partizanship. Waveney had a natu¬ 
ral flair for worldly success, he managed all his 
life, except in the one matter of his marriage, 
to evade failure, to avoid error—he was looking 
upon the future now wholly from that point of 
view. 

His meditations were interrupted by a servant 
who entered, moving softly and brought him 
letters on a tray. His master, looking over them, 
selected one whose envelope bore the stamp of 
a small coronet and opened it. 

“Dear Waveney” he read: 

“Laura Theydon has agreed to take the 4.15 train on 
Friday so as to reach here in time for tea. I have told her 
you will meet her and bring her down. My sister came yes¬ 
terday. The glass this morning is still going up and all is 
looking well. I am just off to meet a friend who is coming up 
from Cornwall and I shall cany her away with me by the 
first convenient train. Au revoir, then, till Friday. How 
about this Washington business by the way? 

“Yours sincerely, 


“Wroxeter.” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 55 

The faint gleam of a smile came into Adrian’s 
eyes as he read. Dear old Wroxeter, with his 
little stories, his amiable foibles and the ladies 

he never failed to meet at the station-! 

One’s imagination beheld him bending his long, 
straight back over them and “my dear” ing 
them, with the irrepressible ardor of sixty- 
five . . . 

Waveney folded up the note and looked at 
his watch; it was half-past four. He rose, took 
hat and stick from the hall, glancing as he 
always did with satisfaction at its checker-board 
floor of black and white marble squares, its 
ivory wood-work relieved by heavy curtains of 
gold and black brocade, its oaken furniture. 
After he had given his hat that indispensable 
last gleam with the little green velvet cushion, 
he went out into Smith Square—contemplated 
St. John’s Church where it stood like a great 
canal boat anchored in the fairway, and began 
to walk along Barton Street in the direction of 
Dean’s Yard. In Victoria Street he finally se¬ 
cured a taxi, and a few minutes later found 
him standing on the steps of the Theydon’s 

house in Cadogan Square. 

Laura Theydon was awaiting him. As a mat¬ 
ter of fact she had been thinking about his 
arrival with a trifle more than the usual self- 
consciousness. Not later than this very day her 
father had questioned her, in his rough-and- 



56 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


ready way, concerning her intimacy with Wave- 
ney, and she had answered according to her 
sincere belief. If only she were not mistaken! 

The Hon. Laura Theydon was a tall, blonde 
woman of twenty-seven or eight, with broad 
shoulders, pink and white skin, pale, large eyes 
which were placid in gaze, a curved aquiline 
nose and a full red mouth. She might have been 
a composite photograph of all the English girls 
who had come out during the last century; and 
she had been as thoroughly badly educated as 
the ideals of her caste could expect. Her natu¬ 
ral intelligence, however, soon caused her to 
appreciate that these ideals were a little arriere, 
and when she came into her mother’s money, 
Laura spent more of it on teachers and books 
than her family considered necessary. It was 
looked upon as something of a fad on her part 
—her father shrugged his shoulders at the books 
and the French lessons—but it was not as if he 
had to pay for them. He came of a group 
who still considered the least of their own 
pleasures as far more important than the edu¬ 
cation of a woman-child and who held that if 
a girl had a low voice, a good seat in the saddle, 
and knew how to dress, she knew all that is good 
for her. 

The Theydons had never held office or been 
in any way prominent, whether for good or ill. 
They regarded themselves as having moderate 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 57 

means, since they owned only one country-place 
»beside the house in Cadogan Square. Needless 
to add, they were Conservatives of the old 
pattern, never read Thackeray, never dined be¬ 
fore eight, and sent—or tried to send—their 
servants to bed at a quarter to ten o’clock 
every night. Lord Theydon expected his 
daughter to regard the Carlton Club as the 
most important and weighty body of men in 
the British Isles, and when she laughed at him 
for this, he did not like it. His own activity as 
a member of that institution was entirely con¬ 
fined to grumbling, but it is something to grum¬ 
ble from the inside. He was, so he thought, an 
indulgent father, and, when Laura grew too 
quick-witted for him, he did not thunder at 
her after the good old fashion of his grand¬ 
fathers. He put it down to the pernicious in¬ 
fluence of the modern Liberal doctrines—and he 
was patient with her, because he remembered 
that Waveney was a Liberal. He liked Waveney 
—who did not?—and had a high opinion of him 
because Wroxeter had: and Wroxeter was the 
beau ideal of Theydon and his friends—all 
vigorous old gentlemen in their sixties, who 
thought of themselves as middle-aged and were 
attached to a physician only if he were “sensi¬ 
ble enough” (the phrase is theirs) to recom¬ 
mend a month at Harrogate instead of a re¬ 
duction of alcohol. No one could have been 


58 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


more conservative than Wroxeter, who still 
spoke of Mr. G. as though he were Beelzebub 
in person; but he always alluded to Waveney 
as a “charmin’ ” or a “brilliant fella.’’ Such 
an opinion from such a source (Lord Wroxeter 
was the tenth of his line) had the utmost weight 
with Lord Theydon, who was only the third of 
his. Of course he did not expect that, after 
an event on the probability of which he had more 
than once sounded his daughter, Waveney was 
likely to remain a Liberal. What passed be¬ 
tween them had been something like this: 

44 Damme,,my dear, what about Waveney now? 
Does he like you, d’you think? Is there any¬ 
thing in it?” 

“I—I hardly know, papa—I—I suppose so.” 

‘ 4 Well, I don’t say I’d have any objections 
since you haven’t seen fit to settle yourself 
before,” observed Lord Theydon from the 
hearthrug, where he puffed and blew a little as 
his mood demanded. “ Waveney’d do, y’know 
—everybody likes him . . ■. Wroxeter has a 
high opinion of him and thinks he’s a wonder¬ 
ful fella’. ’Course he’s not one of us—but 
then he’s not a damned Radical either.” 

“Oh not at all, Papa!” 

“Well, Liberal, Radical, they’re all one to 
me, you know—but a man can change, under 
proper influence-” 

“Of course he can.” 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 59 

“So I think you’d better make up your mind 
Laura, me dear, and get it settled—that is if 
it’s serious, I mean. I suppose he hasn’t pro¬ 
posed yet?” 

“ Really, Papa, I—you make it most awfully 
hard for me by this sort of talk,” and Laura’s 
voice showed her vexation. 

‘ 4 Well, well, me dear, I didn’t mean to vex 
you and ’course I understand—only—you’re 
gettin’ on, y’know, you’re gettin’ on,” said her 
father, and then, as he was really a kind old 
boy who didn’t want to tease his daughter— 
Lord Theydon lighted his cigar and turned the 
subject by asking her how she had spent her 
morning. Laura was grateful and immediately 
began to describe the spiritualistic seance she 
had attended in company with her friend, Claire 
Winstanley. 

The name made Lord Theydon frown. He 
knew more about the Lady Claire than he hoped 
his daughter did and if ever woman deserved to 

be divorced-! But as she was the only child 

of his old friend the Marquis of Beauvray he 
had found it awkward to object to Laura’s see¬ 
ing her. 

4 ‘Didn’t know they let her come up-” was 

all he grumbled, ‘ 4 thought she took that stuff, 
y ’know. ’ ’ 

“But she’s so much better now, Papa—she 
really is!” Laura earnestly assured him, “and 




60 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


it's all the medium’s influence. Claire almost 
never takes the morphia now—since Madame 
Charles told her that it drew a veil over her 
communications with the spirit world-” 

44 Hmph!” from Lord Theydon. 

4 4 She talks to Winstanley’s spirit and is so 
much comforted! She tells me she has ex¬ 
plained everything to him and that he has quite 
forgiven her.” 

Lord They don’s sentiments broke from him in 
a wheezy chuckle. 44 Explained it all to Win- 
stanley’s ghost has she! My word! Better 
late than never,” was his comment. 44 At the 
same time, the Filmers ain’t playin’ the game to 
let her run around town like this. Waveney told 
me the doctor said she ought to keep out of our 
way in the country.” 

44 Oh, but they couldn’t do that, Papa!” re¬ 
plied his daughter with a Londoner’s horror of 
exile, but unfortunately the name just spoken 
had returned her father’s mind to a subject in 
which he was much more interested. He took 
pains before leaving to remind her very seri¬ 
ously of the danger of leaving that affair un¬ 
decided, and of her feminine duty to bring it 
to a conclusion. 

4 4 If you let this chance slip, what with the 
War and all, first thing you know you’ll find 
you haven’t got an earthly. So take my advice, 
and don’t you let it drag on too long. Awful mis- 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 61 

take that—I remember some years ago-” and 

Lord Theydon fulfilled his sense of parental re¬ 
sponsibilities to the extent of telling his rather 
uncomfortable daughter a long story concerning 
a lady he knew who had let it drag on, only to 
discover that the gentleman had married the 
governess in the meantime. 

Then, very well satisfied with himself, he 
bade her an affectionate farewell and took his 
way in the direction of Pall Mall, thinking: 
“Po’ old Laura—’tisn’t as if she had a mother 
to help her along . . . and she’s a handsome 
girl still, though she’s gettin’ on to eight-and- 
twenty. No use lettin’ her stay till she gets 
a bit long in the tooth. And he’s been a 
widower a full year . . . Poisonous woman that 
wife of his, they say—it must have been a 
relief!” Then, pursuing the same train of 
thought as he mounted the familiar grey stone 
stairway, Lord Theydon fell to chuckling at the 
recollection of “old Wroxeter’s” phrase, when 
he had told them at the Club of having met his 
friend Waveney just after his wife’s funeral; 
“Passed him just now in St. James’s . . . 
He was wearin’ a black tie, but otherwise 
bearin’ up!” 

The words, uttered with that twinkling grav¬ 
ity of countenance so inimitable in the speaker, 
had amused his friend Theydon—whom he never 
failed to amuse—and had made their appearance 




62 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


in due course at Laura’s tea-table. Irritated 
as she was with her father—whom she felt to 
be dreadfully old-fashioned about all these mat¬ 
ters, yet she could not help the recollection 
rising in her mind that afternoon, when Adrian 
entered the drawing-room. 


CHAPTER VII 


She greeted him, therefore, with a touch of 
self-consciousness, of which he was immediately 
aware, while wondering that her eyes fell away 
from his. Miss Theydon was so seldom ill at 
ease. She turned to her place behind the tea- 
table, while Waveney followed the tactful prac¬ 
tice of saying nothing until he had seated him¬ 
self, studied her and felt the atmosphere. In 
an instant, Laura’s malaise vanished and she 
was restored to her usual gentle and pleas¬ 
ing self. 

In her low-pitched, lovely voice, she began 
to tell him of her canteen work and the experi¬ 
ences during the afternoon visit at the hospital. 
He listened, hut also he found himself surveying 
her with a critical satisfaction. Her dress was 
subdued to War-time ideas. Around her neck 
she wore her mother’s pearls (Lady Theydon 
had been an Easterly) and they were remark¬ 
ably fine. He didn’t like the jade earrings— 
because his wife had had a passion for them; 
but he watched with a mild pleasure her erect 
figure and the large, fine hands which busied 
themselves with making his tea. Disregarding 
her invitation to smoke, he sat quietly and 

63 


64 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

listened, his hand playing with a tassel on the 
arm of his chair. 

“So we go to Wroxeter Old House to-mor¬ 
row ?” he asked her. 

“At four-fifteen. Will you be coming?” 

“I hope so—unless work prevents me, which 
it is apt to do these days. Who is he having 
there besides Bryan Allott and his wife?” 

“I’ve not the least idea,” said Laura, in¬ 
terested, “hasn’t he told you?” 

“I had a note from him—I had a note from 
him just before leaving my house, to say that 
he was going to meet some friend who was 
coming up from Cornwall. I wondered—I won¬ 
dered who it could be.” 

“It’s just a little difficult to keep track of 
Lord Wroxeter’s friends,” Laura said, with her 
charming smile. 

“Indeed it is. But Cornwall now—what does 
Cornwall suggest to your mind?” 

“Oh, lungs—and Walpole’s novels—and the 
old man who was going to St. Ives . . .” she 
laughed, but Waveney’s mind refused to leave 
the question of Lord Wroxeter’s unknown guest. 

“Is it Christabel Morley, by any chance?” 
he asked, but she shook her head. “Not this 
week-end, I feel sure, but she has only just 
come from there . . . But does it matter so 
much who it is? We can leave her to Wroxeter 
and keep to ourselves easily enough.” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 65 

The calm assumption of these words jarred 
the man opposite not a little—just as it always 
jarred him. He was constantly encountering it 
among the people he knew and realizing that he 
lacked it himself. To him a stranger was always 
an interesting book, and yet he was reserved in 
general talk—a reserve increased by his un- 
happy marriage. Adrian would have preferred 
that Miss Theydon should show a different at¬ 
titude, but he knew her and her world too well 
for surprise. So he turned the subject and 
told her about the number of Americans arriving 
at the Front, speaking rather slowly, but always 
with confidence. Meanwhile he was studying 
her, for he did not want to make a mistake a 
second time. He had married for two reasons: 
he had been physically stirred and also he knew 
the girl had money, which was necessary to a 
public career—and these had turned out to be 
the wrong reasons. ' The passion had brought 
him nothing, not even a memory, much less a 
child—and the money had brought him nothing 
but a house which was too costly to live in. 
Then, years later, he had met a woman for 
whose character and abilities he had felt a tre¬ 
mendous admiration and the very intensity of 
whose feeling had all but alarmed him by the 
revelation of answering passion in himself. 
This was since the War and before he was 
free. It was a time when no man had a right 


66 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


to individual happiness, least of all one whose 
task demanded a cool judgment and undivided 
attention. Pain, therefore, renunciation and 
sorrow, had been the only harvest of that ex¬ 
perience. 

Now he surveyed a woman of his own class, 
cool, dignified and handsome—one whom he 
could many knowing that such a marriage 
would consolidate the position his talents had 
gained for him. No one knew better than he 
the difference that lay between a family of recent 
title and a family which had borne one for gen¬ 
erations. It was altogether advisable to associate 
the two, to bind up the new family influence 
with the old—and it was in truth the only way 
to make such honors permanent. The trouble 
was that he dreaded unhappiness, and, before 
he proposed to Laura Theydon, he intended to 
be sure. 

“You are preoccupied to-day, aren’t you!” 
she suggested playfully, and Adrian realized 
that he had in truth been so. “Surely things 
are beginning to look better for us!” 

“In France, you mean! Yes, indeed. But 
if I am distrait it is because I have had much 
to worry me. I am in fact somewhat perplexed.” 

She grew grave, following his mood. “You 
mean about the American appointment!” 

“That among other things.” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 67 

“Do you mean to accept?” 

“I have not yet been approached.’’ 

“But you will be?” 

“The Times says so.” He paused and then 
continued: ‘ ‘ The matter is complicated. It 

takes reflection. In the first place there is the 
Goat—can one take office when he is in control? 

If it were Asquith, perhaps-” and he made 

a gesture. 

“Papa thinks him stronger than Asquith,” 
Laura said, bending forward. 

“Your father is doubtless right . . . The 
trouble dates further back and comes from lack 
of proper competition. Why on earth did you 
Conservatives let everything go when you came 
into the Coalition? Why didn’t you stand out 
for at least one strong man in the Cabinet 
and so hold the balance of power in the Foreign 
Office? Bob Cecil? I know, it’s a great name, 
but he does not weigh the balance down suffi¬ 
ciently. 9 9 

“I don’t understand how we could help . . . ?” 

“Think a moment and you will—and you 
will. One strong man demands another—the 
whole tone changes. The Government would 
have been forced into making some really good 
appointments. As it is—all goes to the P. M.’s 
jackals and how can one join that crew?” 

“I see.” 



68 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“ Nothing is more important than onr repre¬ 
sentative at Washington for the moment. Every¬ 
thing hangs on it.” 

‘‘Then why not go?” 

He drew back faintly impatient with her lack 
of subtlety. 

“With these people back of me? To be made 
a scapegoat—or, if you like the metaphor bet¬ 
ter, to be ground between the upper and the 
nether millstone?” 

“The nether millstone being President Wil¬ 
son?” 

“You have said it.” 

“Surely,” Laura insisted, “you should be a 
match for them both.” 

“You are very good but even supposing that 
true . . . His Majesty’s Ambassador could not 
be.” He added in another tone, “Besides, the 
thing has to be done in a certain style and I have 
no wife ...” 

“Would Lady Waveney . . .?” she was be¬ 
ginning but his reply was swift. 

“Good God, no! She would never have done 
in the world. Had she lived I could not even 
have let it go as far as this.” He bent a little 
toward her, “Some day—if you’ll let me, I’d 
like to tell you all about that ... I have 
been very unhappy.” 

Her voice was low. “I should be very proud 
to hear.” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 69 

“At Wroxeter then—in the dear old garden— 
we shall have many long, delightful talks,” and 
then, following some impulse, a little obscure 
even to himself, Adrian changed the subject 
and told her something to make her laugh. 

Then Laura told him the story of her visit 
to the medium, being careful to cast her narra¬ 
tive in such a form that he might draw the 
most congenial inferences as to her own cred¬ 
ulity or otherwise. She described the dingy 
house, the dirty mystic, and the excitement of 
Lady Claire, and she dropped in passing, as 
Waveney was later to remember, the informa¬ 
tion that this excitement seemed startlingly 
like fear. 

But at the moment there was only one fact 
which he noted. 4 4 How came she to be in town 
at all?” he questioned, looking gravely at Laura, 
who only smiled. 

‘‘That’s what Papa said—but after all, it’s 
September and there are such things as winter 
clothes! And she’s much better—in health, I 
mean. Why shouldn’t poor little Claire come 
to town and shop?” 

Lord Waveney did not answer this question, 
and Miss Theydon had to notice, as at times 
before, that the subject of Lord Beauvray’s 
daughter produced the most unaccountable re¬ 
ticence in certain men of her acquaintance. Of 
course Lady Claire had ‘‘come an awful crop- 


70 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


per” as the phrase was, but other women had 
done that and yet men did not maintain that 
deep significant silence when their names were 
spoken. Laura knew her world well enough 
to know that silence indicated something worse 
even than unchastity—something belonging to 
the category of what “isn’t done.” It is hardly 
surprising that she felt curious about this; hut 
more so—in her mind—that her friend Lord 
Waveney made no attempt to gratify her 
curiosity. 

When he left the Theydon house it was past 
six. He went first to Whitehall and then on to 
the Lords, dropping into a quiet corner behind 
the throne, where he might be spectator for 
once. Welden was talking, fluttering his narrow 
eyelids over his clever eyes, and wagging his 
twyform crimson heard. The rest sat about 
with small air of interest in anything save the 
prospect of leaving town for the week-end. One 
noble lord rather frankly slumbered. Waveney 
became conscious of disgust for the flaccid lot. 
“The back shelf”—had been the phrase in his 
mind on taking his seat in that august chamber. 
He remembered who said it, turning her dark 
eyes to him with a smile, when she had referred 
to the ceremony of his “obsequies.” 

After a while he left his seat and gathered 
together a few men for an informal conference 
to determine their policy during a certain 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 71 

formal meeting to be held in a fortnight; and 
then went home to dress and to the Cafe Royal 
where he dined with an American millionaire 
who had done splendid things for the Red Cross. 
At this dinner—Adrian recalled it long after¬ 
ward—the probability of an Armistice was seri¬ 
ously discussed. The American’s confidence was 
like a strong, revivifying wind—the dawn-breeze 
of an oncoming victory. The change was com¬ 
ing—it was coming at last. One could see it in 
men’s faces and hear it in the ring of their 
voices and feel it in the movement which under¬ 
lay all life. Many times they had hoped only to 
be disappointed; many times they thought the 
light shone only to see the black horror settle 
down on them thicker than ever. Four years of 
it—four whole years! But now, at last, to¬ 
day . . . the Allied lines went forward . . . 
the Americans were landing in thousands . . . 
the submarines were powerless to prevent them. 
The air raids had ceased . . . rumours of col¬ 
lapse were everywhere. That light in the sky 
was real—was growing ... it meant the 
dawn. 

The image stayed by him as he returned home 
in the soft, misty September evening. The 
dawn, and what would that dawn bring him? 
His thoughtful mood carried him once more to 
his library and to the chair he had left a few 
hours before. Simple and beautiful this room 


72 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


was, drawing richness from the books which 
lined it and from a high carven mantelpiece. 
There were two lacquer cabinets whose exotic 
splendour gave him pleasure—and a few good 
pictures. A portrait hung over his head of an 
Adrian Romeyne who had been attached to 
the household of Queen Elizabeth—another of 
Jasper Romeyne, merchant in the City under 
Charles II, and one of that other Adrian, bar¬ 
rister friend of Charles James Fox, who had 
taken a firm stand for the American colonists. 
He liked to look at them and to remember what 
a race of progressive, clever men they were. 
He did not like to think of giving up this house 
—but though his wife had left it to him as their 
agreement was, she had not left him anything 
else. He certainly couldn’t go on keeping up 
such an establishment. Moreover, if he went 
to America—but did he really want to go to 
America? He was tired—he let his gaze rest on 
the lovely mantel (an Adams piece, his own 
trouvaille )—and when he contemplated its warm 
rose and ivory tones, its dancing figures and 
garlands—he fiercely resented the money ques¬ 
tion ... Of course Miss Theydon had means 
. . . they were solid people, but how much he 
did not know. As he rose finally, very weary, 
and snapped off the light ... he told himself 
that when next he entered there he would prob¬ 
ably be engaged to Laura Theydon. 



CHAPTER VIII 


Wroxeter old house had been built in the reign 
of Henry VIII by a young gentleman of talent 
who had made himself exceedingly useful to 
Cardinal Wolsey. He came of good yeoman 
stock and owned enough land to support a 
knighthood and so make the most of my lord 
Cardinal’s favor. This knack of being useful 
to the great and not too scrupulous in their 
service seems to have been inherited by his 
son, who contrived to become almost as indis¬ 
pensable to Burghley as his progenitor had been 
to the tremendous Prelate who had founded 
their fortunes. Thus the family rose rapidly in 
the world, outgrowing the beautiful half-tim¬ 
bered Manor-house set in gardens, which had 
delighted the founder. The first Lord Wroxeter, 
desiring state, erected to house his new gran¬ 
deurs !a huge pile out of the ruin of the aban¬ 
doned Abbey, just over the hill. Herein dwelt 
several generations until Time brought in its 
revenges or perchance the strain of ability had 
worked out. Certainly in the eighteenth century 
the then Lord Wroxeter ruined himself at the 
gaming-table and put a bullet into his brain in 


74 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

the dawn, leaving the whole complicated muddle 
to a distant cousin. Though he was both ener¬ 
getic and shrewd enough to save much of the es¬ 
tate, the cousin could not restore the ancient 
glories. The Wroxeters of the Georges and of 
Victoria were poor, obliged to let the Abbey to 
rich parvenus from the States or Australia, and 
to sell their Mayfair house. They had even found 
it difficult to keep up the Old House, which had 
been their original home, and which the present 
genial holder enjoyed to the uttermost. The 
tenth, and perhaps who knows? the last Lord 
Wroxeter, was a town-bred person, wdth lodg¬ 
ings in Little St. James Street, just around the 
corner from the Club, but he loved the Old 
House with a very genuine love, and sang its 
praises, though it had no shooting and was badly 
in need of repairs and of electric light. 

To this lovely place, tranquil, smiling, set 
in emerald turf; its gardens yet full of flowering 
thistle and belated roses, with the Michaelmas 
daisies just beginning their bloom—Laura They- 
don and Waveney journeyed down together on 
the 4.15 train. The lady made herself as de¬ 
lightful as circumstances would permit, but the 
train was crowded and their carriage well filled. 
If it did cross Laura’s mind that her com¬ 
panion might have foreseen this contingency 
and engaged the whole carriage beforehand— 
it went to show how little she really knew him. 


75 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

It was not a thing he would have done in War¬ 
time, nor had his title brought with it any sense 
that special privileges were his right. His love 
of power did not extend itself to cover these 
small personal ameliorations of the common lot: 
he reserved it for more important uses. 

Unaware, therefore, of his companion’s dis¬ 
appointment, Waveney gave a most unruffled im¬ 
pression of satisfaction with things as they are. 
He observed Miss Theydon’s appearance with 
decided pleasure and at instants had a feeling 
of contentment in her presence. Yes; she was 
reposeful, she was thoroughbred, she was his 
own sort and probably he could not do better 
. . . Then his mind wandered from the subject, 
and Laura would notice his preoccupation just 
as she had done the day before. 

Waveney had once remarked of himself that 
he had been born with the War. His present 
state of mind was due to a conviction—con¬ 
firmed by that American at the Cafe Royale— 
that the War was going to stop. This idea 
caused him an odd, disoriented sensation . . . 
he felt the strangeness of the new outlook and 
was preoccupied by the effort to get used to 
it. One must, he felt, re-establish relations 
with one’s own past. His conversation with 
Laura therefore remained impersonal and quasi- 
Olympian, and no woman likes the man she 
hopes to marry either to seem or to feel Olym- 


76 THE HOUSE ON SMITH^ SQUARE 

pian. Laura was glad to think that other people 
should find his manner aloof, but toward herself 
she wished him to mark the difference, to look 
at her with eyes that stirred and were stirred, 
to behave in fact as other men would behave. 
He did not. Instead, he made an effort to 
ascertain her views on the future of the Unionist 
Party and her preference as to town or country 
life. Laura recalled that he was said to be quite 
indifferent to women, quite cold. Were this 
true, their marriage might have to be upon a 
rather different plane than she had, perhaps, 
hoped; she must set to work to win him in a 
wholly different way. She was not pleased, 
but she did her best. It formed an odd com¬ 
mentary upon their world that these two, the 
man who fully intended to propose and the 
woman who definitely intended to accept him, 
should have spent this hour together without a 
single intimate word. 

At the station they were met by an ancient 
vehicle and a rationed horse, which conveyed 
them slowly through the lanes to their destina¬ 
tion. Upon arrival, Waveney found an im¬ 
portant message from town awaiting him, which 
necessitated an immediate reply by telephone 
—a protracted and irritating business. Tea 
was half over when he made his appearance at 
the end of the alley between the high hedges 
of yew. 


[THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 77 

The table had been spread under the boughs 
of a great cedar and the party gathered about 
it were laughing and chatting together. His 
tall host, by whom he had already been wel¬ 
comed, had extended his long legs in a Bombay 
chair. Next him Miss Theydon sat, fresh as a 
rose and as erect on the stem. She was talking 
to the Allotts, Sir Bryan, dapper, small, fidgety; 
his wife, Wroxeter’s sister, who sat behind the 
urn, and was a large, dominant person with a 
bassoonlike voice. Both of them were familiar 
figures to Adrian. The remaining member of 
the group he studied, carefully as he drew 
nearer, trying to place the slender, pale woman 
dressed in black, whose grace attracted his 
eye, as she turned her head. He continued to 
walk toward the group down the long, straight 
yew alley without pausing and could not have 
told the exact point at which he had become 
suddenly, intensely conscious who the lady was. 

Lord Wroxeter pulled his own big frame out 
of the Bombay chair and pushed Adrian’s 
slighter one into it: while Sir Bryan insisted 
on handing him his tea, with a sympathetic: 
“Too much telephoning, eh what?” 

Mrs. Ashburnham, with her head turned away 
from her new vis-a-vis, whom she had not failed 
to greet though somewhat formally, was oc¬ 
cupied in asking Miss Theydon the latest news 
of mutual friends—the Easterly family. 


78 THE HOUSE ON SMITH, SQUARE 


* 4 Uncle Thomas and Aunt Ada?—Oh, they’re 
very fit, topping really ... I saw Janey Lochiel 
in town the other day, she’d come up to do some 
shopping and was on her way to Easterly Park. 
Oh yes, Janey’s very happy, she’s become quite 
Scots and Donald hates town. They are all 
most awfully pleased with the baby—a splendid 
little fellow-” 

“I know. She wrote me all about him and it 
sounded so very happy,” said Mrs. Ashburnham.- 
“And how is poor Mr. Easterly going on?” 

“Hugh? He’s much better though he was 
dreadfully wounded. He can walk a little with 
a stick and he takes much more interest in 
things—although of course he will never be 
strong. I forgot that you knew.” 

“I was in Sir Thomas Easterly’s office as his 
secretary until last year,” Mrs. Ashburnham’s 
sensitive voice was warm in its quality. “I 
loved my work there. They were such kind, 
splendid people.” 

“Didn’t you find them just a bit conventional 
and boring?” 

“Not a bit.” 

Miss Theydon’s glance rested on her in sur¬ 
prise. She had often heard before this of Sir 
Thomas Easterly’s American secretary, with 
her system, her tact and her remarkable flair 
for matters political. What she had heard of 
Sidney Lea’s romantic career, crowned by a 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 79 

marriage to one of the most brilliant men in 
the Army had led her to expect a fascinatingly 
unconventional sort of person. Certainly the 
last thing she expected was to find this quiet 
woman, who spoke of her work with enthusiasm 
and of her stiff-necked and old-fashioned em¬ 
ployer with admiring affection. Could it be 
possible that she had really liked being a sec¬ 
retary and had not, as Miss Theydon and her 
sort naturally inferred, regarded it as a mere 
means to the serious end of every woman’s life 
—marriage? If so, how very American! 

Meanwhile her host had started on a charac¬ 
teristic anecdote concerning a lady he knew, 
who had found her husband “toying with a 
charmer” and flew into such a rage that she 
“positively didn’t utter!” His sister was half¬ 
laughing and half-frowning at him—knowing 
where—if once well started—he was likely to 
bring up, while she supplied her husband with 
another cup of sustaining tea. The vanishing 
sun sent a few last shafts between the cedar 
boughs, and touched with gold the yew walls 
forming a green room all around them. Wave- 
ney laid his hat upon his knee and turned his 
eyes to meet Mrs. Ashburnham’s. 

“Still over-working, I see”; she addressed 
him. 

“No rest as yet. You look—you look very 
well.” 



80 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

She turned her head away to smile an an¬ 
swer to some compliment of Wroxeter’s: it was 
evident she was a great favourite there. Adrian 
tried not to stare at her. What an indescrib¬ 
able change the year had wrought! The defer¬ 
ential secretary—whose steady gaze had fol¬ 
lowed everything he said with such interest 
. . . the immature girl by whose intensity of 
feeling at the time he had been so utterly swept 
away, where was she! This woman whose deli¬ 
cate pallor gave her a look, beside the rosy 
English faces, of being etched in black and 
white—was a personality of poise and finish as 
well as of distinguished charm. Her voice was 
the same: he noticed that if less beautiful in 
timbre than the other voices, it had less monot¬ 
ony and more colour and warmth. Her man¬ 
ner was as quietly aloof as his own (he could 
not know, of course, that it had been modelled 
on his own); and when she addressed him it 
was as woman of the world speaking to man 
of the world. Her poise unwittingly annoyed 
him, he wanted to disturb it. He leaned across 
the arm of his chair to claim her attention, but 
she gave him no opening . . . Wroxeter’s 

little story had called forth from her one in 
negro dialect, which she told admirably, while 
Sir Bryan was saying, “Very good—ah quite!” 
with that interior slow gurgle which was his 
nearest approach to a laugh. Waveney was by 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 81 

training infinitely patient: he waited. After 
a time- 

“You see I was right about your countrymen. 
I said they would turn the tide.” 

This time he was rewarded, she turned to him 
a face vividly lighted. 

“I remember that you did and it is true. 
Ah, they are splendid ... In Cornwall—where 
I have been spending this last fortnight, I met 
an officer from home and his sister and we be¬ 
came great friends. No one could be more 
serious about the work ahead than he.” 

“They all are. They are the most terrible 
Army in the world,” he rejoined; “my only 
fear is lest the Germans realize it too soon.” 

“How do you mean—too soon?” 

He put his lips together. “We have cause 
to dread a collapse from the inside—which most 
people do not realize. Our private news is that 
it is near—that it is near. If the political col¬ 
lapse should come before the military—it might 
unloose the forces which many of us are dread¬ 
ing at this moment—more than the German.” 

“You mean the Bolshevists?” 

“You know the economic situation in France 
and here—and the strain we are under?” 

“I know . . . The American officer I spoke 
of had noticed it.” 

“It is getting—it is getting very perceptible. 
If they can hang out until we beat them de- 



82 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


cisively on the field—then we might be able to 
keep them in hand—and incidentally our people 
here. But if their Government collapses, their 
Social Democrats will of course get the upper 
hand, and then our Social Democrats . . 

He was fully launched now, talking, explain¬ 
ing in the old way. How delicious to fix 
one’s eyes on her responsive face and feel the 
current of one’s ideas flow freely, easily into 
words! And how well he was expressing him¬ 
self—all that sense of dull staleness had dis¬ 
appeared. He was a little conscious of an un¬ 
wonted eagerness of speech—a nervous hurry 
to get out all these ideas which he must talk 
over with her. . . . There was so little 
time . . . only four days! He talked on until 
he noticed that a faint flicker of amusement had 
touched her eyelids; and became aware that the 
others had risen, that Wroxeter was saying 
something about the walled fruit, and that Laura 
Theydon was looking far from pleased. The 
servants were carrying the tea-equipage into 
the house. 

“Aren’t you going to show me the rest of 
the garden?” Laura was asking. Her voice 
recalled him as to a duty. He stepped back to 
her side with that little quiver of nervous ten¬ 
sion of which the last weeks had made him so 
disagreeably familiar, and which was the effect 
of overwork upon any interruption to his 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 83 

thought. Mrs. Ashburnham had strolled off 
with Sir Bryan beside her. 46 So it wasn’t 
Christabel Morley or any one in that set after 
all,” Miss Theydon observed, as they followed 
more slowly. “You knew this lady before, 
didn’t you? Is she interesting?” 

“Very able,” Waveney replied with a most 
satisfactory degree of indifference. 


CHAPTER IX 


Lord Wroxeter in his youth had been one of 
those personages whose power to defy the laws 
of health had constituted one of the marvel¬ 
lous commonplaces of the Victorian era. Al¬ 
though even in his twenties he regarded him¬ 
self as a pillar of Church and State, yet he had 
never in his life denied himself anything he 
wanted. Years had modified the sum of those 
desires and compared to many of his kind he 
did not ask so much of life after all; only a 
regular (and sufficient) income, a life planned 
out with exactitude for months ahead—London 
as a permanent home, but plenty of week-ends 
in the country—“some shootin* ”—many little 
dinners with lovely ladies smiling at him—the 
Chairmanship of the Carlton Club—and a daily 
allowance of alcohol which would put an average 
man into his grave in a year. Lord Wroxeter 
was quick of wit, amusing and kind: it had 
been wholly out of kindness that he had first 
sought out the widow of that brilliant soldier 
who came of a cadet branch of his house. He 
had envied and admired Harry Asburnham and 
the attention seemed to him a duty. Virtue 
has its own reward, for instead of finding the 

84 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 85 

lady, as he had confidently expected, rather 
limited and perfectly tiresome—she turned out 
to be a “charmer”—to use his own word. 
Lord Wroxeter therefore, proceeded to take up 
Mrs. Ashburnham with an amount of enthusi¬ 
asm which might easily have been misleading to 
a woman of another type. It did not mislead 
Sidney for an instant, but it profoundly amused 
her. His good looks, his gallant speeches, his 
dropped gs and Victorian phrases, his anec¬ 
dotes a la mode d’Edouard VII , all these de¬ 
lighted her rather special literary taste. Nor 
did she fail to penetrate below them, to appre¬ 
ciate his qualities of shrewdness and sane judg¬ 
ment, and to realize that his friendship, once 
gained, was loyal and true. These character¬ 
istics were oddly contradictory of certain others 
so that, as Sir Bryan Allott put it: “Poor old 
Wrox! He’s always tryin’ to keep on bein’ 
friends with the lady he’s stopped makin’ love 
to—and sufferin’ from it.” 

Life seems continually bent on forcing its in¬ 
consistencies upon its true student. Had any¬ 
one told Sidney Ashburnham during her New 
England upbringing that she should come to 
regard this lovable voluptuary with affection and 
what amounted to indulgence, she would have 
indignantly denied it, yet it was true. He stood 
as much for an era that was past as a specimen 
in a museum and she looked on him with the 



86 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

same sort of compassionate and friendly interest 
as one accords such a specimen. The present 
society was not his society; the newly ennobled, 
Liberal, business Peer was not his sort of aristo¬ 
crat and this world, occupied with considering 
the proletariat, was not his world. He was as 
surely doomed as the butterfly Sidney saw 
clinging with its velvet wings to the sunny wall 
of his fruit-garden—doomed by the blast of >a 
coming economic winter, which he and his like 
were not fitted to survive. Such at least, she 
knew fio be Waveney’s opinion and the reason 
underlying his incessant activity—this justifi¬ 
cation of one’s existence by belonging to the 
future. And Wroxeter belonged to the past. 

She thought of this while dressing next morn¬ 
ing, in the low-beamed, chintz-hung bedroom 
whose windows looked out upon the water- 
garden of the Old House. The red sun had 
hardly yet dispelled those delicate mists which 
had lain all night upon the range of hills. The 
garden in its composed beauty lay beneath her; 
beyond it the meadows and the copse seemed 
another garden, beyond these again, park, farm¬ 
land, hill and dale, all England, linked garden 
to garden without pause. It was so peaceful, 
so beautiful. She told herself she didn’t want 
it to go; no one would wish to go on living 
in a world where such things could no longer 
be. Waveney’s anxiety had infected her mood. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 87 

Had they saved all this from the German, only 
to hand it over to the mob—the mob of which, 
from Coriolanns down, thoughtful men knew 
the fundamental, destructive savagery? 

She had not been given a chance the night 
before, to talk further with him. At dinner he 
sat next Miss Theydon, and it was evidently 
the host’s intention to throw them together. 
After dinner they had made up a whist-table 
which Miss Theydon willingly joined, so soon 
as she found that Waveney showed no disposi¬ 
tion to emerge from the smoking-room, where he 
sat deep in talk with Wroxeter and a neigh¬ 
bouring Squire named Cumberland. Mrs. Ash- 
burnham had been bidden to take a hand of 
cards, but when she frankly avowed her lack 
of practice, she had been readily excused and 
her place taken by Mrs. Cumberland. She 
spent the time rambling about the garden alone 
to her infinite content; although once or twice 
she found herself wishing she might slip unseen 
into the smoking-room, and listen to the grave 
voice and its balanced wisdom. She knew the 
others did not appreciate it: they merely termed 
it “Waveney’s good common-sense!” 

The weather remained almost ostentatiously 
fine, to everyone’s reiterated surprise at break¬ 
fast. Mrs. Ashburnham coming in gayly had 
replaced her black frock with a white skirt 
and blouse, a white sailor-hat and white foot- 


88 THE HOUSE ON SMITH, SQUARE 


wear that struck the other women present as 
astonishingly slim. In this costume she looked 
like a girl, and her host delightedly repeated 
that it was 44 quite char min’.” Waveney too 
felt a stir of surprise at the light grace of her 
entry and he took occasion, as he went to the 
sideboard and helped himself to kedgeree, to 
compare her looks with Miss Theydon’s. No: 
there was no possible doubt as* to which woman 
was the handsomer, Laura with her height, her 
fair bloom, her intricately dressed blonde hair, 
would have been noticed as good-looking when 
Sidney would not have been seen at all. What 
distinguished the latter was intelligent sensi¬ 
tiveness and a moving quality of intensity that 
led one to imagine all sorts of delicious possi¬ 
bilities. Waveney sat down again at the table 
and tried to analyze it. She was more plastic 
than the other, he decided, and had a high 
nervous vitality making her energetic and adapt¬ 
able. Just as she had been a sound and tactful 
secretary so she would be—if she had the chance 
—a remarkably efficient great lady. 4 4 That 
woman,” her late employer had told him, 44 is a 
master-politician ... I never found her once 
at fault . . . there were times, Adrian, when 
she reminded me of you!” 

Was it this subtle kinship that caused his 
mind to wander constantly in the direction of 
Mrs. Ashburnham? Adrian was annoyed with 


89 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

himself for speculating on her chances of ex¬ 
ercising her talents in the great world. Was it 
Wroxeter who would give her this chance—and 
what affair was it of Adrian’s if he did? This 
was no way to begin to handle his own complex 
personal situation—to keep thinking about this 
other lady! He was tired, he must be losing 
his grip—he would propose to Laura that day 
and have done with it. 

“Shall we walk this morning?” he asked her 
and knew beforehand exactly how she was go¬ 
ing to smile her assent. 

There was a telephone in the Old House, but 
even before the War it was seldom used save 
as a necessity. Therefore, when Pargeter the 
butler brought to the breakfast-room the in¬ 
formation that there was a trunk-call for Mrs. 
Ashburnham, there was a stir of commiseration. 
Bad news was felt to be the only explanation 
of such a desperate expedient. But when Sidney 
returned, it was seen with relief that her face 
was quivering with laughter. 

“Oh!” she cried, standing in the doorway, 
“isn’t it exactly like them and aren’t they 
wonderful? That was my American friend— 
the officer I met at Falmouth and liked so 
much . . . Major Rendall ... I consulted 
him about a business matter-” 

“—Awfully sharp those chaps are y’know 
-” Sir Byran nodded approvingly. 




90 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“—And lie wants to talk to me about it. He 
has had a cable, I think . . . May I ask him 
here, Lord Wroxeter? He has a car.” 

“ bourse . . . ask him to tea ... I love 
’em,” said her host, beaming, and Sidney van¬ 
ished to give the invitation. 

“Aren’t they amazing—the Americans—al¬ 
ways telephoning and rushing about ?” queried 
Lady Allott as she unrolled her knitting and the 
others agreed that they were indeed amazing. 
Sidney was still radiant with amusement when 
she returned. 

“It ’s so like him . . . ” she reiterated as she 
dropped into a chair by Lady Allott . . . “he 
couldn’t understand the time it took to get con¬ 
nected . . . he’s been telephoning ever since 
last night! And he thinks nothing of running 
down here for half an hour!” 

“No petrol ration for these chaps—they’re 
most amazin’ chaps,” said the serious Sir 
Bryan. “We had some of them at the Club 
and they told me-” 

There was no shooting attached to the Old 
House and no horses in the War-emptied stables. 
But the gardens lay spread before them and the 
air on the terrace was as mild as midsummer. 
Wroxeter was glad of his brother-in-law’s com¬ 
pany as he set out for a distant field, whose 
destiny for the next spring’s planting could not 
be deferred. He had noted with satisfaction 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 91 

two figures—the man walking with his hands 
behind his back, the lady in a blue dress and 
bearing a rather superfluous parasol—who were 
taking a path that led toward the beech-wood. 

4 ‘I’m jolly glad to see that, Bryan, y’know,” 
was his comment as they fell into step, turn¬ 
ing toward the home-farm. “Let’s hope she 
pulls it off this time. Theydon gave me a hint 
and I told him I’d give her a leg-up.” 

“Quite so—’tisn’t as if her mother was alive,” 
Sir Bryan rejoined, unaware of the high quality 
of his own irony. “Theydon wouldn’t be a bit 
sorry to have a friend’s help, eh? Let us hope 
she leads him to the altar. The first old gell 
was a horror, they tell me.” 

“A rank outsider, my dear chap—one of the 
worst! She hadn’t an earthly—a dead weight 
. . . He staggered under it. Now this is all 
right. Laura has a tidy little bit, from her 
mother—and I don’t think poo’ old Waveney 
has any too much—d’you see. But they don’t 
stir without him in Downing Street.” 

“What will the Goat hand him next, d’you 
fancy?” Sir Bryan asked; making use of an ir¬ 
reverent Conservative nickname for Mr. Lloyd- 
George. 

“ ’Tisn’t the Goat ... he can’t stand for 
the Goat—told me so himself . . . they’ll be 
sure to give him something worth havin’— 
something we ought to have had if Milner and 


92 THE HOUSE ON SMITH, SQUARE 


Bonar Law had only stood out as they ought 
. . . Where does the Conservative party come 
in to-day anyhow ?” said the outraged Lord 
Wroxeter. 

“But he’s a good fella and not a damned 
Radical ... If Laura gets him it’ll be all 
right,” the easy-going Sir Bryan assured him 
and the talk drifted into the eddies of minor 
political gossip. 

Lady Allott was a nice motherly person who 
spent every spare moment knitting for the men 
in the North Sea. Since America had begun 
to send so many soldiers she had become very 
much interested in America. She asked Sidney 
many questions. Why were the Americans al¬ 
ways so rich? Was the country pretty? In 
which part of it lay the great houses and es¬ 
tates? Was the hunting good? The climate 
must be very trying—were the orange-groves 
some distance from those terrible blizzards? As 
far as Cornwall was from Scotland? What did 
people really think about President Wilson? 
She had heard it rumoured that there were no 
titles. If so—how very odd! 

Sidney reflected that for four years past she 
had been asked these same questions and had 
never found them easy to answer. Americans 
always seemed rich because the English met 
none but the richer Americans. Parts of the 
States were prettier than others. There were 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 93 

no great houses—in the English sense. (This 
answer never failed to bring bewilderment into 
elderly eyes.) There was a little hunting, she 
believed. The climate was changeable perhaps, 
but oranges were not grown anywhere hut in 
the South. (This was stupid of Sidney because 
Devonshire and Sussex are the South.) As there 
were a hundred million people, there were prob¬ 
ably a hundred million opinions of President 
Wilson. There were no titles—and of course 
that must seem odd to Lady Blanche. It was 
so hard to convey the truth by answers, and the 
next Englishwoman she met would take for 
granted that everybody in Boston did their own 
washing. Mrs. Cumberland had drawn her views 
of American society entirely from the books of 
Jacob Abbott and Louisa May Alcott. She was 
surprised to hear that one’s Grandmother no 
longer read Milton as she mixed the blueberry 
tart! Sidney had the same helpless feeling 
as she had had when her friend’s elderly house¬ 
keeper had assured her: “It stands to reason 
that the States would go with us, doesn’t it, 
Miss? Along with the rest of the Colonies!” 

She began to tire a little of this need of 
perpetual translation. She wished George Ken¬ 
dall would arrive. She wished, until she pushed 
the thought out of her mind, that the pale blue 
dress and its escort would return. 


CHAPTER X 


> 


Major George D. Rendall, U. S. A., arrived at 
Wroxeter Old House about four o’clock, in a 
lean, dust-colored motor-car, driven by a Dough¬ 
boy, whose advent raised the servants’ hall to 
a quiver of excitement. The way he hopped 
out; the way he hopped in; the way he scorned 
to crank but simply touched a button and the 
whole brown and silver mass of machinery 
moved easily off to the stables—all this filled 
Pargeter and the rest with a sort of stupefied 
wonder. It was the first time any of the staff 
at the Old House had met one of these heralded 
millions, by whose help we were to sweep the 
Germans back again behind the Rhine. This 
particular Doughboy was young and vaguely 
Irish as to looks; with a quirk to his smile and 
a merry eye. His salute was quite astonishingly 
casual. He appeared to be chewing something 
which smelled vaguely of peppermint. He ad¬ 
dressed Pargeter—to the cataclysmic sensations 
of that functionary—as “Say, General!” and 
when invited to come into the house, cheerfully 
replied that he didn’t care if he did. His re¬ 
mark as he joined the group just assembling 
for tea was: “Say, you sure are dead stuck 
on tea in this country!” and when asked from 

94 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 95 

what part of the States he came, his answer was 
proud and instant: “From Persepolis, N. Y.— 
the world centre for corset-steels !” 

Altogether it was long before the Old House 
forgot his visit and Pargeter amused his master 
considerably that evening by his account of it. 
The amusement exhibited itself in a series of 
subterranean chuckles, which were but fore¬ 
runners of the chuckles with which it was to be 
received at the Carlton Club. Those were the 
days when the Americans were still a standard 
source of amusement and no wonder that Lord 
Wroxeter led on the faithful Pargeter to the 
fullest expression of his surprise. “A most 
extraordinary young man, m’lord, if I may say 
so—and quite quaint. He addressed me as 
‘ General ’ — but I take it that was only his 
joke?” 

“I had to reassure the beggar,” Lord Wrox¬ 
eter always wound up the story—“He was 
afraid the Yankee was takin’ him for Douglas 
Haig! ’ ’ 

Major Kendall himself turned out to be quite 
as expected. Reserved and a little stiff: long, 
thin, brown and businesslike—his figure and 
countenance as he paced the garden-path beside 
Mrs. Ashburnham, struck Sir Bryan Allott as 
displaying certain sachem-like and even aborig¬ 
inal characteristics. 

“Are they all so solemn-looking as that?” he 


96 THE HOUSE ON SMITH; SQUARE 


enquired. “One hears so much about the Amer¬ 
ican humor.’ ’ 

“Which has, however,” Waveney informed 
him, “no connection with gayety. It is an in¬ 
tellectual humor and as Kipling said, rather 
acrid. I remember when I was last in New 
York that I asked a police officer standing just 
outside the Grand Central Station if he could 
tell me how to get to Battery Park? He looked 
at me and said with perfect seriousness: 
‘Search me!’ ” 

Sir Bryan appeared mystified. “I beg your 
pardon?” he said leaning heavily toward his 
friend, “a police officer asked you to search 
him? But—how very odd!” 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Ashburnham had led her 
friend to a bench in the water-garden overlook¬ 
ing a pool where the gold fish nibbled among the 
stems of the water plants; and where, on the 
trellis above their heads, a rose or two still 
hung quivering in the light airs. 

“This is pretty!” George avowed looking 
about him with the utmost satisfaction. “I 
guess 'this is one of the ‘stately homes of Eng¬ 
land’ all right, all right! There are lots of 

the show places I’ve seen can’t touch it. I 

took a bicycle trip all through here when I 
was a boy at College . . . but the houses we 

saw seemed too big and stagey somehow to 

be anybody’s home. But this is different.” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 97 

Mrs. Ashburnham agreed that it was; and 
George turned his attention from the garden 
to her face and was some minutes in returning 
to the cablegram, which lay open upon his knee. 
In her white frock she seemed so young and 
appealing in his eyes; while at the same time 
he was distastefully aware that she seemed 
perfectly at home in these (to him) exotic 
surroundings—that she* fitted into the back¬ 
ground of this ancient house and garden so much 
better than himself or Mildred could have 
done. . . . 

“Well, you see what Peter says here your¬ 
self, don’t you?” and he smiled gently on her; 
“you’re a clever and sensible woman and ought 
to need nothing more from me to show you 
which way the cat is bound to jump . . .You’ve 
simply got to get to N’York as fast as ever you 
can arrange it. You see what the concern is 
earning . . . and what’s your share . . . 

You can’t afford to lose all that; and of course 
I know you ’re not afraid . . * ” 

“But they’ll never give me a permit . . .” 
protested Sidney. 

“I’m coming to that—I think I can fix that 

for you-” he replied, “Anyhow, I’ll do 

what I can Monday before I take the train. 
. . .You know my leave’s up Monday?” 

“Oh I am sorry!” 

“Well, when you’ve got a job to do—get it 



98 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


done is my motto. Pm chiefly sorry on Mil¬ 
dred’s account ’cause she’s pretty lonely in 

London-” George reflected, ‘ 4 London is a 

lonely place.” 

i ‘Not if you’re at work there,” she told him. 

“And then there’s getting you off—seeing 
that it’s done right. ... I must say I’d like to 
do that, but it can’t be helped. . . . The main 
thing is that you will go 1 ” 

Mrs. Ashburnham remained silent for a space 
—a space which her companion realized was one 
of indecision. After a moment he went on 
quietly: “I know—you don’t want to—you 

made it sufficiently plain and I’m not the one 
to ask you why. I guess the reason is too— 
too sacred for you to talk about and I’m not go¬ 
ing to—only—you know you don’t have to stay— 
that is, if you really don’t want to after this 
business is fixed up. If you want to come 
back here you can,” said poor George, making 
a great effort. “It’s awfully hard for me to see 
how anybody can want to—when they could 
be at home . . . but nobody can keep you . . . 
no Government or anything . . . you’re an 
Englishwoman. ’ ’ 

“The difficulty will be to go—not to come 
back,” said* Sidney, shaking her head; “they’re 
not letting any Englishwomen travel.” 

“As I said—I think I can help you about 
that-” Major Rendall returned, “I’ve an 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 99 

idea that it can be worked. It’s not a pleasure 
trip, but it’s to get the cash and I never no¬ 
ticed England to be a bit behind when it came 
to that. If you don’t get it—they can’t tax 
^—y’see—they’re pretty much on the job when 
it comes to the dollars—as far as I can tell.” 

“But what am I to do when I get there?” 
she asked him, raising her eyebrows. “You 
seem to take it quite for granted that I can 
plunge into what may be a complicated sort of 
a business fight, about, which I really know 
nothing. . . . ? Mr. Hansell is an old man 

and not strong and he lives in Boston . . . 
certainly I can’t rely on him for any advice. 
And you say that these people who are trying 
to rob me are powerful?” 

“Laub and Haggerty? I should say so,” his 
tone was one of sincere admiration, “but I 
think in this case they’ve been a lit-tle bit care¬ 
less. Ye-e-s, as I see it,” said George in tones 
of deepest satisfaction, “I think old Laub is 
going to get his fingers pinched this time, if 
Peter can pinch ’em . . . Peter’d love it. . . . 
He’s the finest old sport, Peter, and you couldn’t 
do better than Sampson, McClintock and Fes¬ 
senden—anyone in N’York’ll tell you that. Old 
Peter’ll treat you right and you needn’t worry 
Mr. Hansell or yourself either for that matter. 

. . . Peter is an old friend of mine.” 

‘ ‘ But there’s the expense—and then . . . ? ” 


100 THE. HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“Oh you needn’t worry the least mite about 
that,” said George shortly, omitting to explain 
that he had already given Mr. Sampson au¬ 
thority to use his own funds on Mrs. Ashburn- 
ham’s behalf to a considerable extent. 

“Of course it’s a pity, I can’t be there my¬ 
self,” he went on regretfully—“there’s nothing 
in the world I’d enjoy more than putting a 
spoke in Laub’s wheel. He’s a pro-German 
beast. . . . But since I can’t—well, Peter is 
probably better than I’d be. . . . Anyhow, 

you won’t have any trouble about it. All you’ll 
do is just to sit down in a nice hotel, or make 
a visit to Mother at Hempstead (I’ve written 
her and she’ll be awfully glad and so will my 
sister Linda) and see some real shops and hear 
Caruso and get rested up after all these 
months.” 

He enveloped her in kindly thoughtfulness; 
he was irresistible. Sidney could no more 
evade it than she could a wave of the sea. She 
sat uncertain, puzzled; vaguely wondering, 
vaguely remembering, while underlying her 
gratitude for the personal kindness lay the 
conviction that this man’s judgment was right; 
his competency unquestioned. She had had 
enough experience to know these things when 
she saw them. 

“If you think I’m laying a great deal of stress 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 101 

on the dollars/ ’ George saw his advantage and 
spoke earnestly, 4 ‘it’s only because I don’t like 
the look of things for the future—for any of 
us, still less for a lady living on a fixed income. 
. . .You may be able to get on all right now— 
but the purchasing power of money is dropping 
every day. There are hard years ahead for 
the middle people, as I’ve said before. . . . 
Any day you may wake up to find yourself in 
a hole. And I don’t want you to have that 
anxiety. ...” He said this so simply and 
naturally—his interest seemed so reasonable and 
friendly that it could not make her self-con¬ 
scious. 

“The reason I still hesitate,” she answered 
him, choosing her words, “is because the whole 
thing is a gamble and one I can’t afford. I 
always regarded that money as lost—so did 
Mr. Hansell—so did my father. The living in 
New York was too expensive for me years ago— 
what must it be now! I’d have to do it on 
capital ... so you see! I do believe you know 

—and I appreciate all your trouble-” 

“That’s nothing,” George hastened to assure 
her, “I’d do as much for any lady I know/’ 
“Well—but suppose I went and failed to get 
anything out of it!” 

“Can’t fail,” was his laconic reply. “Is that 
a tea-table over there! Shall we go over and 




102 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


talk to that tall old gentleman who met you 
at the station, what was his name, Lord 
Waveney ?” 

“Oh, that’s not Lord Waveney . . .!” she 
rose laughing; and George, relieved by the in¬ 
formation, rose also and accompanied her to 
the shade of the cedar-boughs, where the rest 
had gathered. Major Rendall was put into a 
big chair; tea and cake were given him, and 
kind glances were turned on him. Wroxeter 
greeted him with an affability in which more 
than a trace of stateliness yet lingered, and told 
him that “you fellas are certainly toppin,’ none 
better!” When George addressed his host as 
“Sir” using the same deference that he would 
have accorded at home to the distinguished judge 
or physician or any other elderly person of note 
—Wroxeter never batted an eyelid. George 
liked his fine, clever face, but found his in¬ 
tonation difficult and what he privately termed 
“the lingo” perplexing. Sir Bryan made it 
a point to ask him about “the shootin’ ” but 
George said that he’d never been after grizzlies 
—and when the other carefully explained that 
he meant “birds” George avowed a complete 
ignorance. Evidently there wasn’t much shootin’ 
in his country. He did ask Sir Bryan with 
politeness, “which birds do you like best?”— 
a question for which they all thought the better 
of him until they found he meant “like to eat ” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 103 

at which they all laughed and some are doubtless 
laughing still! 

Conversation then languished, but the man 
on George’s left, then took it up with an adroit 
question on a more familiar note. This was 
a pale man with a fine head, spirited and 
thoughtful, and remarkably compelling blue 
eyes; who seemed to know everything about 
everything and with whom George was soon 
eagerly talking. Although his manner was re¬ 
flective and slightly aloof; yet he yielded nothing 
to the American in quickness and his mental 
touch alighted on the subject as delicately soar¬ 
ing as John of Bologna’s Mercury. He seemed 
to know the States,—he, even, wonderful to re¬ 
late, knew something of the language and yet 
forbore to use it himself, for which George was 
grateful. Rendall enjoyed him immensely. 

But the shadows were long on the grass and 
he must start on his way back to London. He 
rose to take his departure. Somehow or other 
it had been passed about that his leave was 
nearly up—and the hand-clasps showed by their 
cordiality that this was appreciated. When 
Lady BlanchB bade him good-bye, she spoke 
from the heart. 

“Sorry you have to go back-” she told 

him, “my boy went last June. All right? Oh 
yes. He’s dead. God bless you!” and George 
never forgot it. She looked him straight in the 



104 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


eye and that’s how he always thought of Eng¬ 
land—as looking one straight in the eye, because 
her losses were an honour. 

When he thanked his host, George added 
“that he hoped to give him a good time in 

N’York, the very next time he ran over-” 

and his opinion of English coldness was very 
much modified. Vaguely enough, he had yet 
supposed that the Englishman didn’t like the 
American because the American’s ancestors had 
given the Englishman’s ancestors a good beat¬ 
ing! The truth is, the upper-class Englishman 
remains as a rule perfectly unaware of that 
fact—while the lower class Englishman half the 
time does not even know that the States are 
an independent country. If he had cared to 
ask them, George would have found that Par- 
geter, the butler, the cook and the housemaids, 
the postman and the village butcher, all hon¬ 
estly believed that every American soldier took 
an oath of allegiance to the king and that they 
were members of a rather specially independent 
colony, now, a little tardily, doing their duty. 
George never knew this truth—which accounts 
for so much—and which is impossible for the 
visiting American even to conceive of. 

“Those are kind people every one of ’em,” 
he commented as he and Sidney strolled toward 
the motor car. “I appreciate it awfully, their 
asking me in like this. Lord Wroxeter’s a 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 105 

wonderful old boy, now isn’t he? The real 
thing every inch of him as anyone can see. 
But it’s that other chap I talked to that knows 
things—he’s a fine man ... I didn’t somehow 
get his name?” 

She told him, but even then he did not modify 
his praise. 

“Say—I just wish they’d send that man to 
Washington! It would do a world of good. 
We need to see a real Englishman now and 
then for a change ! Well, I guess this is good¬ 
bye ? ’ ’ 

She put her hand into his: but said nothing. 
“You’ll write Peter Sampson right away . . .? 
And you’ll start about getting your passport 
as soon as you get back to London, won’t you? 

. . . You won’t leave it? I’ll do what I can 
at our Embassy to-morrow. . . . And look here, 
Mrs. Ashburnham! get Lord Waveney to help 
you; he can if he will. . . . Good-bye, and . . . 
Good-bye!” 

He dropped her hand awkwardly and got 
into the motor, his face set into its usual gravity. 
She saw him settle himself in his corner, and 
square his shoulders as the car started. She 
waved to him and he lifted his cap and kept 
it off so long as he remained in sight. 



CHAPTER XI 


Nothing in life is to be counted on but the 
unexpected. On Friday afternoon, Lord Wave- 
ney had regarded himself as good as engaged 
to Miss Theydon—and his inevitable proposal 
to her as the raison d’etre of the visit to 
Wroxeter Old House. By Sunday morning the 
proposal had not only ceased to be inevitable 
but had so shrunken in importance that he re¬ 
membered it with a shrug. Marriage with Miss 
Theydon had ceased to be doubtful; it had 
become impossible. 

September had apparently decided to be the 
crown of an unusually fair, dry season and each 
day at Wroxeter turned out clearer and milder 
than the day before. Saturday night was al¬ 
most warm, and Waveney—not of recent months 
a sound sleeper—found himself early awake: 
his mind summoned, as by a gong, to the some¬ 
what anxious consideration of his perplexities. 
He rose, dressed, and went into the garden, 
startling the furtive housemaids at their tasks. 
There with his cigar he paced to and fro in 
thought; more given to self-analysis than was 
his wont. 


106 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 107 

He could not honestly have told himself that 
Laura had disappointed him; she still seemed 
in every respect what he ought to desire in a 
wife. She held the views that were serviceable, 
ideals that were quite safe, a personality wholly 
attuned to a public man’s existence. No: he 
was not disappointed: Laura was the quintes¬ 
sence of the expected. She had the sense of duty 
and the belief in masculine prerogative which 
most men (Waveney thought with a shrug) are 
supposed to demand. She had beauty, taste 
and race . . . her nerves were at the moment 
far steadier than his own. One could count on 
Laura; the dignities of life would he well looked 
after. If marriage were a question of nothing 
but dignities! Unfortunately it wasn’t. It was 
also a question of deadly intimacy—intimacy 
which, even among a caste by whose traditions 
it had been ameliorated for centuries with every 
species of licensed hypocrisy — intimacy, the 
thought of which even in Smith Square—was 
deterrent. 

She was not delightful—or was he too fas¬ 
tidious! Was he perhaps too middle-class— 
looking back on parents who didn’t own separate 
suites of apartments—to desire to make a mod¬ 
ern aristocratic marriage! Or was his hesitancy 
a reflection of the general doubt concerning the 
social fabric! Adrian knew he was more sensi¬ 
tive than most men to impending change. If 


108 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

one were sure of England, of the future of any¬ 
thing . . . ? If the dominant class, which she 
so well represented, was going to remain dom¬ 
inant? ... If not, what could one do with 
Laura Theydon? She had been cast in a mould, 
and it was not the mould of the future. Laura 
without the background of an ‘‘ establishment ’’ 
somehow ceased to be a personality. No doubt 
Adrian was quite mad to wish a wife who should 
remain a personality whatever happened—but 
so it was. The best balanced minds indulge 
occasionally in these extravagant ideals. . . . 

Yes, that was it, he reflected, pacing to and 
fro by the lily-pool, in front of the bench where 
Mrs. Ashburnham and her American friend had 
sat the day before . . . that was it—the weigh¬ 
ing in the balance of modern need, of an entire 
class, with its ultimate rejection! It all came 
to that—that Adrian was not sufficiently certain 
of his own future—of his party’s future—of 
his country’s future—to tie himself by marriage 
to a small, conservative class which he felt 
was doomed to failure and extinction. Now 
Adrian hated, dreaded failure. The future did 
not belong to the Theydons, or to the Allotts, 
or to the Wroxeters—or even to greater politi¬ 
cal families like the Filmers. He was even 
beginning to feel that it belonged more to him¬ 
self as Adrian Romeyne, than as Waveney of 
Burcote. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 109 

One recalled a talk not long since with Moul¬ 
ton—that extraordinary mind—when the Rus¬ 
sian disintegration was before men’s gaze and 
the question it raised as to whether man must 
choose a world under the Germans or a world 
under the mob. If the Germans were making 
the last frantic, desperate, bloody struggle of the 
older order against the new—surely, Fate had 
shown an appalling subtlety—when it had en¬ 
listed England on behalf of the new! The re¬ 
sult must lie between the Americanization of 
Europe or mob-rule—there was no middle way. 
Could one imagine Laura as Mrs. Adrian 
Romeyne . . . f Hardly: for she was a pro¬ 
duction, quasi-exotic, and under highly artificial 
circumstances, adapted to conditions no longer 
likely to obtain. The man who owned such a 
production ought to enshrine it in a special 
cabinet—shielded from outer air by wealth and 
power. 

As his thoughts cleared, Adrian began to see 
how the coming of the American officer had not 
been without effect. He had impressed Waveney 
by his unself-conscious competency and adapta¬ 
bility. Things Rendall had let drop indicated 
a spiritual and mental upheaval in his home 
as great as England’s had been. . . . Their two 
countries would hold the world between them— 
if they could only be brought to better under¬ 
standing. Should he be named Ambassador— 



110 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

this task would he largely his—and how did 
Laura regard it? To her an Ambassador was 
sacrosanct and an Ambassadorship was the em¬ 
bodiment of special privilege. She believed that 
the United States looked up to England. . . .! 
She considered Americans in general as ener¬ 
getic, amusing and rich—above all as rich! Was 
this the attitude of mind meet for such a post? 
He knew the misconception was basic—no hus¬ 
band’s wish could change it. 

After Rendall’s departure, Adrian had strolled 
into the hall ahead of the others, to find Mrs. 
Ashburnham alone there, lying back in a big 
chair. Her eyes were soft and shining and about 
her neck clung a necklet of crimson stones. The 
quiescence of her figure struck him—for he knew 
her capable of sustained energy as no other 
woman he had ever met—and her langour at 
the moment troubled him . . . He came quietly 
over and sat down on the light fender near her. 

. . . His cigar glowed red and he wagged his 
long forefinger at her to emphasize his points 
while he talked. In the shadowy, ancient room, 
she was intensely aware of his presence. . . . 
There he was on the fender! The memories it 
roused stirred her heart with pain, and as he 
talked she turned her face and eyes away . . . 

‘ 4 Your American friend pleased me,” he told 
her. 

u Isn’t he a dear?” her voice was warm, “and 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 111 

so kind! I had forgotten there was such kind¬ 
ness in the world.’’ 

i ‘ Had you experienced the reverse since I 
saw you last?” He spoke a little jealously, hut 
she answered nothing. He waited, then asked: 
“He wished you to return to the States?” 

“There is a business reason—and he has al¬ 
most convinced me that I ought. Do you think 
I could get a passport?” 

“It all depends—it all depends. We will try 
if you are serious.” 

“I am beginning to feel serious. . . . After 
all, it would be foolish to lose a considerable 
sum of money—enough to take care of my old 
age just because I’m too timid, or too stupid 
to exert myself to get it?” 

“You are neither the one nor the other. . . . 
And of course it would be foolish.” 

She moved restlessly in her chair. “I hate 
the money question,” she cried, “it poisons life, 
particularly just now, when we are all thinking 
of greater things. . . . But one could do so 
much more to help! And he—Rendall,—fired 
my imagination, I confess. . . . There will be 
a fight—and against these pro-Germans—yes, 
I should like to try it.” 

Anyone else would have felt it necessary to 
shake his head and talk about carrying on— 
and the risk and all the rest of it—suggesting 
a doubt of this adventurous fire. Not so Wave- 


112 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


ney. Her spirit sent a glow all over him; it 
was like a breeze from the open sea. She went 
on: “I shall consider further, but no doubt I 
shall find it interesting.* * 

“You find life dull here?” 

“ Certainly, I miss my work with Sir Thomas. 
You know how much I enjoyed it.” 

“I remember.” 

“When Major Rendall first suggested this 
journey—it seemed impossible. I didn’t wish 
to leave England and I felt that Harry would 
have disapproved. But the talk this afternoon 
has set me thinking about that. Harry did not 
know about this money and besides he was all 
for effort. He hated supineness, inertia-” 

“He was the embodiment of action, always. 
If anything, he was magnificently rash.” 

Waveney’s warm reply evoked before his in¬ 
ner eye that splendid figure. Few men had 
valued Colonel Ashburnham higher than he. 

“Well—you understand how I feel. He would 
not like me to yield without a fight. I had 
thought that perhaps it could be managed for 
me, without my going across. But I have had 
another thought. I have had a long training 
with Sir Thomas and as you know, I have ac¬ 
quired a good deal of information about people, 
firms, trade and so on. . . .” 

She spoke hesitatingly, but his mind, as swift 
as his manner was deliberate, understood all the 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 113 

implications underlying her words. He knew 
very well how valuable, under certain circum¬ 
stances, might be the special knowledge she had 
gained during her secretaryship. 

“When peace comes there will be a read¬ 
justment of trade, and people in New York will 
need to know about firms and so on in London. 
Trade is the great bond between countries. It 
may be that I can checkmate some of the Ger¬ 
mans—I can at least try. . . .You are laugh¬ 
ing at me . . . ? 

He turned swiftly. “Far from it! You are 
wonderful. . . . wonderful! But then you al¬ 
ways were.” 

She laid her hand across her eyelids in an 
involuntary movement of self-protection, because 
his praise was so very sweet. “Only because 
I used to watch you, and learn. ,, 

“You have bettered your master .’’ 

“Bo not say so until you see whether I 
succeed or not in my adventure. It may be I 
shall go for nothing but disappointment, and 
the vultures of Wall Street will pick my bones.” 

“Even then, I shall not alter my opinion.” 
He looked at her with friendly steadiness which 
passed into a vibration of intensity, as their eyes 
met. “Your courage! I do like—your courage. 

99 

• • • 

“I must try, it is evident,” she made an ap¬ 
pealing gesture; “talking with the Rendalls has 


114 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


changed me. Although I combatted his view yet 
I felt its truth. He made me somehow differ¬ 
ent . . . braver, more active. . . . ’’ 

“They all do. It is the terrible criticism of 
their world on ours.” 

“I feel I cannot spend the rest of my life 
pinching and being afraid and playing safe. 
. . . Harry would have hated that for me. . . . 
And the alternative? To go visit his old aunt 
in Derbyshire and be sweet to her in hopes 
she’ll make me an allowance. . . .You should 
have seen Rendall look at me when I suggested 
doing so.” 

“I can imagine it.” 

“The Yankee in me roused—I felt it couldn’t 
be done so long as there is work.” 

“You can have another secretaryship for the 
asking.” 

“I’ve ceased to want it . . . The next world 
we’re sliding to isn’t going to provide for the 
private secretaries as the past did. But I’ve 
lots of ideas—and I mean to belong to the next 
world! ’ ’ 

She impressed him so much, so very much. 
Her personality—so spirited, yet so feminine; 
her far-sightedness; her words speaking his own 
restlessness. . . . He could not think of any 
adequate way to express his sympathy. 

Silence fell. Shadows crept into the room 
and her figure was hidden in them. . . . Mrs. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 115 

Ashburnham broke the pause with a question 
relating to Kendall’s opinion concerning the 
world’s economic situation—a subject which she 
knew interested Waveney. He answered speak¬ 
ing freely, his mind clarifying all he touched; 
and Miss Theydon found him, when she came 
downstairs, still talking, still perched upon the 
fender. 

“Aren’t you going to dress'?” she reminded 
him and Waveney looking up beheld her in her 
pale mauve draperies, and her fair hair and her 
amethyst earrings. “Bless me—is it late?” said 
he, and fled. 

Mrs. Ashburnham rose very deliberately and 
went upstairs without an effort at haste. Had 
she followed her mood it would have been to 
defy the mauve draperies and go into dinner 
as she was. But she was not yet brave enough 
for that. So she vanished, and Miss Theydon 
stood looking after her with a certain doubt 
in her mind. No one could have said that the 
American had made advances to Waveney— 
rather she had seemed to avoid him. Laura had 
lingered on the stair long enough to realize that 
their conversation was entirely impersonal. 
Nevertheless, it had made her decidedly uneasy. 


CHAPTER XII 


If the American officer’s personality had an 
effect on Adrian, the conversation just described 
had increased it. He had re-assured Miss They- 
don during dinner by seeming less preoccupied 
than usual, but she hardly realized that the 
preoccupation was a more favorable symp¬ 
tom because it took her for granted, than an at¬ 
tentiveness which had its roots in study and 
comparison. During his broken night these 
ideas, fantastically transformed had not left 
him; now they lingered like scent and colour 
in his consciousness. Under the influence of 
these two Americans it seemed as if his care¬ 
fully laid plans had been dissolved, broken, 
scattered to the wind. As he paced the garden 
paths in the lovely morning, he found he could 
no more seize and re-form them than the wind 
can blow together and re-form the filaments of 
dandelion-top which its breath had scattered! 
. . . What cord in him had vibrated to the cry, 
“I want to belong to the next world!” He, 
too, wanted to belong to the future which she 
and her like, with their energy and imagina¬ 
tion, were to shape and guide. 

Yet if this fact was clear—it bore also cor- 

116 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 117 

relations which he could not escape. If the 
Theydons belonged to the past, why did not he, 
Waveney? His future, politically speaking, had 
never been so doubtful. He had never been a 
friend or admirer of the Premier. The Ameri¬ 
canization of English politics did not enlist his 
sympathy. If he had begun life as a Radical 
the wave had swept so far, that it had him 
left behind. He could not whole-heartedly rest 
in either camp. As things were, he did not 
wish to follow either Conservative or Liberal 
leadership—and to belong to the future, a man 
must make his choice. Up to the present, that 
choice had pointed to the former, because the 
great Conservative family, the Filmers, headed 
by the Marquis of Beauvray, were his close 
friends. 

But lately, Adrian had felt disinclined to ask 
for the support of the Filmers. As to the 
Ambassadorship, he was beginning to feel that 
the delay in formally offering it, was deliberate. 
Probably “they” were waiting a little to see 
which way the cat was going to jump—waiting, 
perhaps for some special manifestation of his 
allegiance. If the War ended, the group in 
power—it was too incoherent to term a party— 
must be looking forward to strengthening itself 
for a General Election. The man who was 
standing out for Waveney’s appointment, was a 
Coalition Unionist, by no means sure of his 


118 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


own position in that event. Thus the Govern¬ 
ments attitude towards the Ambassadorship 
was not likely to be perfectly disinterested, and 
there were men to whom Lloyd George owed 
more than to himself. 

By breakfast time, this train of thought had 
carried him into that same zone of depression 
which he had hoped to leave behind him in 
London. He strove against it and was glad 
when the time came to step through the windows 
standing open to the lawn and greet the others 
who were gathering about the table. Later, 
when the question arose of plans for the day, 
he did not commit himself. Wroxeter, who 
went to church himself less regularly than he 
liked his guests to go, succeeded in steering 
the Allotts and Miss Theydon in that direction. 
Mrs. Ashburnham, pleading many letters, dis¬ 
appeared. A light shadow lay upon her eyes 
and they loomed larger and darker than ever. 
Adrian paused by her chair long enough at 
breakfast to ask: 

“Did your nights sleep resolve all your 
problems ? ’’ 

“No: did yours V 9 

“How did you know?” 

His tone was almost naif; as he paused un¬ 
certainly, his hand on the back of her chair, 
and Sidney bit her lip. She replied composedly, 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 119 

“You know, I have seen you before when you 
were a good deal bothered.” 

“I want to finish our talk a little later,” he 
observed abruptly; but she turned away without 
directly replying and not long afterwards he 
saw her mount the stairs toward her room. The 
inclination was strong to call her back, so that 
he even got so far as the foot of the staircase— 
but his host claimed his attention at that instant 
and the chance seemed lost. 

It was pleasant in the cedar-shade, once the 
others had driven off to church. Pargeter 
brought out the papers, the Times . . . the 
Observer, and Wroxeter was eager to talk over 
what Garvin had to say. Adrian felt less able 
to contribute than usual; he was tired, and his 
poor night had accented that occasional diffi¬ 
culty in concentrating his thoughts—which, his 
doctor had reminded him, was the effect of 
overwork. He always liked a talk with Wroxe¬ 
ter who, though a Tory of the deepest dye, had 
in many respects the most markedly indepen¬ 
dent mind in that party and could always give 
color to his views by the influence of a past and 
more distinguished political era. Wroxeter had 
never belonged to the school which holds that 
the first necessity of a successful political ca¬ 
reer is the ability to write Latin verse; his na¬ 
tive intelligence gave him a shrewder view of 


120 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


the future than was common among his peers. 
The only stumbling-block to his success in pub¬ 
lic life had been an inability to form habits of 
work—or to put it more accurately, an inabil¬ 
ity to discriminate between what is work and 
what isn’t. A man who holds that August 12 
and September 1 imply engagements fully as 
binding as a Bank-meeting to a Bank Direc¬ 
tor, is a man who in the England of to-day, is 
likely to be left behind. Lord Wroxeter was 
found of telling a little story of how an Amer¬ 
ican business man of great influence tried to 
break up an August 12 shoot, because some 
business emergency or other required his 
presence in London! It was a tale which 
may have demonstrated the strange habits of 
the barbarians, but which had a tendency to 
re-act upon the teller. Thus, though Wroxeter 
had a clear head, a firm power of decision, a 
hatred of muddle, and was punctuality itself— 
yet he lacked the sense of relative values which 
would have made his party anxious to avail 
themselves of his services. In his own opinion, 
their failure to do so was inexcusable. Wrox- 
eter’s liking for Adrian was real. His atten¬ 
tion to the younger man held a subtle if unin¬ 
tentional flattery. To-day, when he saw his 
guest seemed unresponsive, he sympathetically 
maintained silence and in friendly wise fell into 
the other’s mood. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 121 

Privately he said to himself something like 
this: ‘ 4 Wonder if Laura’s been giving him 
trouble? . . . Must give her a hint. Oh the 
gells! the gells!” 

Political discussion, therefore, had somewhat 
lost interest; nor did Adrian rouse to more 
than a smile at his friend’s description of 
Washington in winter, as “ greatest fun in the 
world, seeing the zoo!” and his equally un¬ 
qualified condemnation of the same city in the 
summer season. . . . “The devil of it is—that 
they all expect you to be stayin’ on there—look 
most awfully black if you don’t. So you get 
to livin’ on their iced-stuff and cocktails—till its 
‘good-bye, stomach’ and you’re done. Of course 
there’s always New York . . . !” 

That there was always New York, indeed, was 
a comforting reflection to a large number of 
gentlemen of Lord Wroxeter’s kidney; who 
shook their heads very sadly at mention of 
Paris and consoled themselves with the thought 
of the illimitable hospitalities of Fifth Avenue, 
“where lovely woman is as fair and warm,” old 
Wroxeter quoted softly to himself with a remi¬ 
niscent smile. 

Meanwhile Adrian, his black mood hanging 
over him, sat impassively watching the cigar 
smoke curl above his head and saying to him¬ 
self: “This is what they like—this is what they 
are—this is what they expect me to be—good 


122 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

God! the ‘back-shelf 1 indeed . . . and I 
wanted it—I tried for it!” 

What had happened? He had the odd sense 
of having been thrown from a perfectly safe 
vehicle to a roadside where the surrounding 
landmarks were unfamiliar. Was it because the 
War was going to stop? And that with the 
end of the War came the end of the centripetal 
emotion which had held the Empire together? 
Was that now to be changed and become cen¬ 
trifugal? He asked Wroxeter, who looked grave. 
“And if so—what, what? For if in 1914 we had 
India, Egypt, Ulster and Labor—in 1918, each 
one of ’em has sprung fresh heads like the 
Hydra. . . . And we lack the men to deal with 
’em . . . you know where the bureaucracy has 
landed us. . . . As for Ireland—nothing could 
have been handled worse by us—civil war is in¬ 
evitable and my work there has convinced me 
that the problem is insoluble for the present 
Cabinet. ’ ’ 

“Quite so, dam ’em!” assented Wroxeter with 
the utmost cheerfulness. 

“And they suggest that I—I, of all men, 
should go to Washington.” 

“Well, but why not?” 

“Too tired,” said the other and Wroxeter, 
looking at him with attention, agreed. 

“Mrs. Ashburnham was saying,” Adrian med¬ 
itatively continued, “that, after all, such figure- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 123 

heads as our Ambassadors scarcely belonged to 
the future. . . . An American friend of her’s 
told her that it took him forty minutes to ex¬ 
plain to our last Mandarin what a Bill of 
Lading was.” 

“ Seems to me we keep tryin’ to please the 
States and not succeeding” Wroxeter said fold¬ 
ing his paper. “If we send ’em an ornament 
like that—then we hear such a tale . . . but 
if we send ’em a business man like themselves 
—they are no better pleased.” 

“Mrs. Ashburnham says it takes more sym¬ 
pathy and imagination . . . ” 

“Oh does she?” 

A new idea wrinkled Lord Wroxeter’s brow 
as he replied. 

“Poor old Theydon!” was his inner comment 
and he turned the talk to something else. Now 
and again he glanced at Waveney whose long 
figure suggested an unusual degree of lassitude. 

The soft English summer, which hardly seems 
to die, so gradually it passes into autumn— 
spread its gold about them. The blue spirals 
of smoke curled into the bluer air. Wroxeter, 
having disposed of Garvin’s news and decided 
—as he usually did—that the other party were 
“swine,” went into the house to get off some 
letters. Half an our later, he became aware 
of voices from under the cedar-branches, in 
talk more animated than his own had been. He 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

strolled to the terrace and, looking, saw Mrs. 
Ashburnham’s white frock in the chair he had 
just left. Waveney, no longer languid, was 
speaking with absorbed energy and turning 
towards her a face concentrated and alive. Lord 

Wroxeter went back into the house, frowning. 


CHAPTER XIII 


To reach Wroxeter Church, one crosses the 
lower meadow by the path which skirts the 
Abbey grounds until it meets and runs beside 
the Abbey brook. Rounded and soft are the 
hills on the horizon, often shrouded in a blue 
and mauve cloud, which seems to descend from 
the piled masses of mist drifting in from the 
ocean. These blues shift from lavender-blue 
to green-blue, while the autumn sunshine lends 
them a golden over-dress. Some hidden mystery 
seems to lie in the heart of this empurpled 
distance; the eye, lingering on its loveliness, 
suspects a towered citadel, or vast cathedral, 
its spire piercing heavenwards. From Abbey 
Bridge there is a good view of the Abbey 
itself, its unaltered magnificence lying amid the 
ancient gardens. For years now, it has been let 
to an Australian manufacturer, with whom, be¬ 
fore the War, Lord Wroxeter remained on 
strictly businesslike terms. Now that two lads 
were gone from the Abbey to France, whence 
one will not return; Lord Wroxeter often 
strolls over to tea and speaks of his tenant as 
“the best ever.” He looks upon the new brass 

125 


126 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


tablet on the church wall with a feeling as near 
to bitterness as was possible to him; envying 
the parvenu his dead far more than he had 
envied his fortune. 

Beyond Abbey Bridge, the path leads by 
way of the village of Diggery’s Bend to the 
somewhat larger village of Wyefield. At Wye- 
field House the Cumberlands live, pleasant, easy, 
dull people, useful to make up a bridge table. 
They seldom went to town and Lord Wroxeter’s 
comings and goings constituted the chief event 
of their lives. They always speak of the long- 
vanished Countess as “poor, dear Sylvia Wrox- 
eter,” but it is extremely doubtful if they 
ever ventured to call her that in life. The vicar 
of the parish was their cousin—although the 
living belonged to the Abbey—and the church 
—a restored building neither new nor old, 
stood at their very gates. 

Miss Theydon, in a pew just under the pulpit 
beside Lady Blanche, stood, sat or knelt as 
the service demanded with that outward ap¬ 
pearance of balanced gravity which was the in¬ 
dicated behaviour, and beneath which her 
thoughts roamed restlessly enough. She de¬ 
cided that the glass had never amounted to 
much—the ancient fragments being vague and 
faded . . . The vicar was handsome, but his 
voice was unpleasant—when he didn’t caw, 
he gobbled. During the lessons, she examined 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 127 

a half-effaced inscription on a nearby stone 
pillar and at length made it ont to read: 

“Under The stone at This pew’s Ende 
Lyes olde Iohn Iohnes of Diggery’s Bend.” 

Then her thoughts wandered back to her own 
affairs. It was a pity Waveney hadn’t come 
to church—one should always set an example, 
and all the more if one’s status in such mat¬ 
ters had not been predetermined by a long line 
of Church-supporting ancestry. But Liberal 
peers were notoriously careless . . . heavens! 
if he should turn out to be a chapel person? 
(Laura soon dismissed this idea, however.) 

This white coat and skirt with the thin black 
stripe in it, her real lace blouse and black hat 
were the very smartest things she had. After 
some hesitation, she had added her jade ear¬ 
rings—now she wished she hadn’t. What a 
funny, dried up little man Sir Bryan was . . . 
Rumour said that he had given Lady Blanche 
some trouble which might have been serious, 
only she understood them . . . Rumour also said 
she was the only person who could do anything 
with the Earl her brother when discipline was 
required, which in his youth had been pretty 
often. But even she had never been able to 
get him to remain under the same roof with 
“poor, dear Sylvia” for more than a fortnight 
running—although he had always been most 


128 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


smilingly polite both to his wife and his sister. 

The creed recalled Miss Theydon to another 
line of thought and she repeated it with reverent 
gravity, very different from Lady Blanche’s 
booming fervor. Laura regarded fervor in 
church as out of place. Her religion was es¬ 
sentially Chinese, “the proper performance of 
the proper acts at the proper place and in the 
proper way,” but she was piously unaware of 
it . . . 

Certainly no one could call the Ashburnham 
woman smart! What was it about these Ameri¬ 
cans anyhow . . . ? This one had no looks, 
she was slight and pale and didn’t even under¬ 
stand how to make herself effective by a little 
powder and rouge. She wasn’t clever . . . 
or amusing . . . She didn’t talk very much 
. . . nor had she made any special effort to get 
Waveney’s attention. Laura had never been so 
disappointed in anybody in her life, so she told 
herself during the collection. But then it was 
very evident that Waveney had met the lady 
before, they were already good friends if no 
more. After all, what did any of them know 
about Mrs. Ashburnham? Only that Lord Wrox- 
eter had taken her up—and certainly that was 
no guarantee . . . she might very well be a 
mere adventuress! Wasn’t there some story 
about her? Maybe she had some hold over 
Waveney, which would account for his attitude 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 129 

much better—in Laura’s opinion—than did her 
personal attractions. 

Well, when she got back to town Miss Theydon 
would make it her business quietly to enquire 
around and find out about this—this interfer¬ 
ing person. No doubt something underlay the 
previous intimacy, a something, which in 
Laura’s mind was bound to be unsavory. What¬ 
ever it was, she meant to find it out—and from 
this determination, Miss Theydon drew a sense 
of power and tranquillity on leaving the sanc¬ 
tuary, which she strangely attributed to the in¬ 
fluences of religion. 

At the same moment that Miss Theydon was 
reaching this conclusion, .the subject of it was 
turning toward her companion a countenance 
vivid enough, cheeks from which the pallor had 
been banished by the consciousness of the eyes 
that watched her, and a gaze in which the hidden 
fires burned brightly in response. Mrs. Ash- 
burnham lay in a long chair and crossed her 
hands behind her head so the soft lace of her 
sleeves fell *away from her slender wrists. She 
turned her face often to the wide, pale sky, 
which was invaded by a slow-moving cohort of 
clouds. As for Waveney, he talked and talked 
—he was borne along as by a resistless stream 
and it seemed to him as though he had been 
silent for months. He talked about the coming 
peace, what was hoped from it and what dreaded 


130 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

—about the men who would decide its trend and 
what he knew and distrusted in their characters. 
He talked about the hope of an Anglo-Saxon 
federation, an alliance of strong and enlightened 
states which would hold the peace of the world 
inviolate . . . He talked of the old civiliza¬ 
tion and the new—of Power vs. Perfection. 
He talked about the great American experi¬ 
ment and how for one hundred and forty 
years it had succeeded because of its sheer 
intellectual conception: and of how he saw in the 
modern, more Europeanized American a ten¬ 
dency to shrink from the steadfast moderation 
of that conception and subject the structure of 
his legislation to the corroding influence of sheer 
sentimentalism. Hid Mrs. Ashburnham think 
that was due to the rising power of women— 
or to the preponderance of the Slav—from 
whose political creed, founded in violence and 
tenderness, no stable good had ever come? . . . 
Mrs. Ashburnham did not know . . . but she 
wished to ask him how, when the collective life 
subsided and the individual life once more rose 
to reclaim its rights, these centrifugal forces 
which the War had loosed were to be held from 
rending the world asunder. “Only,” he an¬ 
swered her, “by enlarging that middle zone— 
the zone of obedience to the unenforceable 
. . .” And he went on to explain his theory 
that government consisted in its essence, of 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 131 

three zones: the zone of positive law at one 
end, the zone of positive freedom at the other 
—and in the centre the zone of obedience to 
the unenforceable . . . and that the civilization 
of any country was determined by the extent 
of this middle zone . . . Then he drifted from 
these generalizations to the question of his own 
work, his own future . . . and she asked him 
rather bluntly if he were not tending to join 
the Conservative party. His answer amused her: 

“. . . Join them? Join what? They have 
no more policy than a crowd on a wet day— 
whose one purpose in common is that they all 
hold up their umbrellas!” 

4 ‘And for you there is no shelter under their 
umbrellas?” 

Her readiness delighted him . . . and, as they 
talked, his own revolt and distaste became the 
plainer to him as also the reason why he strug¬ 
gled against it. 

“Politics welcome the intelligent man—but 
neither in your country or mine is the politician, 
nourished on the phrase of the moment, going 
to submit his theories to an acid so corrosive 
as the intellect!” 

“Has he ever done so?—not in history.” 

“You are right . . . you are right of course. 
One must abandon thought or one will become 
merely disconcerting and our people hate to 
be disconcerted. I shall give up thinking!” 


r 


132 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“If you can.” 

“Do you remember?” be leaned forward— 
“that day you spoke of my taking my seat as 
my obsequies?” 

Her voice was low. “I remember . . . 

wasn’t it true . . .?” 

“I fear—I fear it may turn out to be true.” 

“Then I think,” she answered, “that perhaps 
after all, I shall be glad to leave England!” 

“But I do not wish you to leave England.” 
He spoke deliberately as he studied her face 
over the tip of his cigar . . . she was sud¬ 
denly conscious of a suffocated sensation, like 
fear . . . but meeting his eyes she was able 
to reply with steadiness: 

“Why not ... ? Everything you say 

inclines me to do so . . . ” 

“You have not convinced me that it is wise 
—this wild-goose chase, whatever your friend 
Rendall may say—and I do not want you to go 
away just when I most need my friend.” 

“But—are we friends?” 

The turn of her eye in the socket and the 
quiver of her face were beautiful in themselves 
and held him tongue-tied, though her words gave 
him a shock. Certainly, she had changed. Had 
he made a ’remark so flattering to the girl who 
sat at a desk in Sir Thomas Easterly’s room 
in Charles Street—how her eyes would have 
glowed with the delight of hero-worship! That 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 133 

hero-worship had been intensely inspiring, for 
months had preoccupied and deliciously wor¬ 
ried him—until the breath of circumstance had 
caused it to flame into passion. He could never 
forget that for an instant he had held this 
woman in his arms—although neither could he 
forget that he had put her away from him 
and from danger because of him. Manlike, the 
past was a tie in his mind—and he had looked 
to find the same realization in hers . . . But 
this “Are we friends?” savored rather of hos¬ 
tility . . . After a pause he said: 

“I believed—I hoped we were.” 

“Then,” and Mrs. Ashburnham’s voice had 
recovered a certain silkiness, “you will be glad 
to have me better off, I should think. We agreed 
that a secretaryship was out of the ques¬ 
tion-” 

“I assented only because you said so.” 

“A woman should not work too long ... it 
is deadening ... It will be better to try my 
fortunes in my own land and make my friends 
there.” 

“Major Rendall, for example?” Adrian was 
surprised at the sudden impulse which caused 
the question . . . but his nerves this morning 
were not normal. Her voice was coldly even. 

“Probably,” she answered, and he came near 
to feeling actually snubbed. Their eyes met 
ajid he read in hers the unspoken accusation: 



134 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“Were you not glad to let me drift away to 
a new life? Why then don’t you wish me to 
be happy in it?” This revelation embarrassed 
him, he knew not how to answer it. He was 
far from blaming himself, quite the contrary 
... no honourable man would have entangled a 
helpless girl in a love affair of which tragedy 
was the onlv issue. Yet he had not looked to 
find her so cold, so independent; it roused him 
to rare irritation, which was by no means less¬ 
ened by his awareness that their talk had taken 
a turn beyond his control. To have an inter¬ 
view get beyond his control was an experience 
new to Lord Waveney and not very pleasant. 
Before he had time to recover the reins, Mrs. 
Ashburnham had deftly assumed them and with 
a political question that was like a flick on the 
leader’s neck, soon had the conversation running 
easily along again. By the time the church¬ 
goers were seen strolling across the lawn toward 
them, she was laughing lightly at some anec¬ 
dote of Lord Welden . . . and it was all quite 
smooth and impersonal. As Waveney fell into 
step beside Miss Theydon on their way to 
luncheon, he retained an impression of baffled 
uncertainty which was for him as disagreeable 
as it was unusual. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Henby, observed Lady Blanche Allott se¬ 
verely, “your little friend Mrs. Ashbnrnham is 
charming, quite charming—but do you think it 
was altogether prudent to have her down for 
this week-end V’ 

The hour was just before dinner. Later that 
Sunday afternoon the sunshine had vanished 
and now a light rain was falling with a delicate 
sound upon the lawn without. A little fire had 
been lighted and in front of it Lord Wroxeter 
stood, erect and tall on his own hearthstone. 
Above the white oval, smooth and shining, his 
handsome head shone in relief—a figure full of 
meaning, already alas! grown exotic, a meaning 
that included leisure, dignity and physical 
beauty—things already passing or about to pass. 
His sister was no philosopher, as she sat there 
with her knitting, but she had abundant ma¬ 
terial. The background was an ancient hall, 
its low ceiling beamed in oak, the carvings on 
the fourteenth century staircase as fine as 
lace. Curtains and coverings were a shade of 
deep blue, like the delphinium bed lying out¬ 
side the window, and the coals on the hearth 
sparkled gold and red. All this restful picture 

135 


136 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

seemed a little worn, faded, vague if you like, 
and even the sturdy figure of its owner shared 
this wraith-like quality. Beside the fierce glare 
of the world without, the scene shone with an 
intimate beauty, inevitably evanescent. Wave- 
ney, going upstairs to dress for dinner, looked 
down upon the figures in quiet talk, with a 
sudden depressing perception of all this and 
might have cried out with Faust: “Oh stay, 
thou art so fair!” 

The question just asked by Lady Blanche had 
broken the pause which followed his departure, 
and the sequence of ideas was one with which 
her brother was, to his vexation, perfectly 
well aware. Probably for that reason he did 
not at once reply and his sister was forced to 
resume. 

“You know how the Theydons are—old friends 
of ours and all that. He’s been hopin’ this 
would come off and it looked quite safe and 
certain. Now, on the contrary, I’m afraid that 
Mrs. Ashburnham’s bein’ here has spoiled 
everything. ’ ’ 

Lord Wroxeter’s face did not change but he 
murmured an “Oh my dear!” behind his mous¬ 
tache in a manner deprecating enough to assure 
his sister that her fear was justified. She 
gave a cluck of annoyance as this took shape 
by speaking. 

“It wouldn’t matter so much if Laura were 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 137 


not one of us . . . and yon yourself have always 
maintained that these Liberal Peerages can only 
be brought round by marriage ... It seemed 
so exactly suitable! Who is this Mrs. Ash- 
burnham anyway, that she should interfere?” 

“You know, Harry’s widow, my dear Blanche 

_ 7 y 

“Pooh, Henry! What does that mean? 
Harry was our kinsman and a hero if you like 
—but that doesn’t imply he knew how to choose 
a wife . . . Soldiers of that type are always 
falling into the hands of some adventuress or 
other . . . Certainly, she isn’t missing him 
exactly . . . Why can’t she keep her hands off?” 

“Never knew a gell in m’life,” said Lord 
Wroxeter reflectively, “who could resist a good 
shot!” 

“Well, he oughtn’t to have been such a good 
shot then . . .” Lady Blanche’s voice showed 
a marked impatience. “There’s something about 
these Americans—I don’t see it myself—they 
seem perfectly sexless to me—but they are cool 
and independent! This one has never come to 
me to be guided in any way. I suppose our 
men are so run after that it draws their atten¬ 
tion-then first thing you know, the man has 
changed his mind!” 

Lord Wroxeter denied nothing in this speech 
except the sexlessness of the American woman. 
He interjected at that assertion a “Not to me, 




138 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

my dear!” which was highly characteristic. It 
reminded him of another remark of Blanched 
which had given him infinite joy to repeat— 
to the effect that she could not believe there 
was as much vice as people said . . . she had 
never been inside one of those places in her 
life! It seemed more prudent to smoke on quite 
peacefully until she had finished. 

. . . “That is just what has happened here. 
Really, I think you should have managed better 
. . . She hasn’t seemed to run after him—I 
know that—but ” 

“She hasn’t lifted her little finger,” he said 
emphatically. “It’s only that—though Laura is 
a nice gell, she isn’t to be entered in the same 
class when it comes to amusin’ a man!” 

4 Amusing—” boomed Lady Blanche, “really 
—Henry, you amaze me. Does a man get mar¬ 
ried for amusement—among us, at any rate?” 

“Evidently not!” her brother assented 
meekly, but he twinkled. 

“Then why on earth did you ask her down? 
It’s you, Henry, that are to blame and so I 
shall tell Theydon if I see him—though I hope 
to heaven I don’t!” 

“I don’t see why I am to blame because 
Laura couldn’t pull it off—I gave her every 
chance . . . ” 

“But you’ve just acknowledged that you 
didn’t . . . Laura hasn’t the charm to compete 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 139 

with the other lady. Besides you must have 
known that she and Waveney were old friends.’’ 

“There you are mistaken,” Wroxeter said 
shortly and with finality. “I knew nothin' 
about that ... I knew her as dear old Harry’s 
widow and a charming woman . . . But I never 
thought he’d fall for her so quickly and I don’t 
see why I am to be blamed.” 

Lady Blanche could not contradict his words, 
but it was easy to relate this situation to her 
fundamental sense of dissatisfaction with his 
conduct and she lost no time in doing so. 

“I must blame you,” she repeated. “If it were 
not for your perpetual softness where women 
are concerned, you’d have put her off a week 
. . . But you can’t resist them if they’re the 
least good lookin’ . . .It’s dreadful. You 

know how we all feel about you . . . Women 
have been your enemy all your life . . . If it 
were not for that, we might have settled things 
with Sylvia so that there would have been an 
heir to the place. As it is—well, I’ve spoken 
my mind before, and that’s that. But you are 
always putty in any woman’s hands—and have 

been since you were born.” 

“I think, y’know, she’s goin’ home to the 
States,” was all that Wroxeter thought it pru¬ 
dent to answer to these accusations. 

“What good will that do now? 77 said his 
sister as she rolled up her knitting. But the 


140 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


soft sound of a descending frock was heard 
on the stair and Lady Blanche’s wrath was not 
soothed when Wroxeter uplifted his voice with 
quite a new note in it to say: 

“Oh my dear—do come here and let me see 
how perfectly charmin’ you’re lookin’!” as Sid¬ 
ney came smilingly toward the fire. The others 
followed within a few minutes and Lady 
Blanche was fain to receive what comfort she 
might from the fact that Laura and Waveney 
descended side by side, and seemingly on the 
best possible terms. She did note, with reluctant 
leniency toward her brother, that he drew Mrs. 
Ashburnham’s arm through his own and devoted 
himself to her during dinner with all his classic 
gallantry. If by this arrangement Lady Blanche 
was relegated to her husband’s society she 
offered no objection—Sir Bryan had been tran¬ 
quilly bored by her for many years and was 
used to it. She lost no time in asking him— 
subduing her large voice as best she might— 
what there was to admire in the American lady 
from the masculine point of view, and found 
his replies as vague as usual on such an occasion. 

Somehow, though Miss They don’s jade ear¬ 
rings were wonderful against her pale gold hair; 
though Lord Wroxeter paid his compliments 
and told his mid-Victorian anecdotes into Mrs. 
Ashburnham’s ear in his most affectionate man¬ 
ner; though Waveney’s weariness seemed to 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 141 

have left him and his face and words were 
animated; though Sir Bryan told them twice 
over his story about a parrot and kept reiterat¬ 
ing to their intense amusement: “My dear 
Wrox., I always say ‘There is no true dignity 
without Perfect Repose 9 ” yet somehow the 
little dinner was far from gay. A shadow hung 
over it, a shadow of impending separation which 
seemed symbolic of a further and wider separa¬ 
tion and caused a tension and restlessness af¬ 
fecting everybody. By and by, Mrs. Ashburn- 
ham expressed this feeling, when she said 
hurriedly and even a little nervously: 

“Do you know—I feel so strangely to-night 
—it’s a little hard to define but I feel as if the 
War were going to end!” 

Waveney jerked his head up to look at her, 
in a rapid movement unusual with one normally 
so deliberate ... it was almost as though 
she had spoken his very thought for him. She 
continued half shyly: 

“It makes our last dinner together seem 
more of a parting-” 

“But why! Surely you know we’re win¬ 
ning-” 

“Oh yes—I know we are winning—but it 
isn’t exactly that—the War has made an at¬ 
mosphere, hasn’t it? that we’ve all had to 
adapt ourselves to . . .Now there must be 
another. ’ ’ 




142 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“The old one, you mean!” 

“Perhaps it is the old one I dread. I was 
not in England to share that atmosphere, and 
shall I feel strange when all this toil is over!” 
Her face was very sensitive and likeable, but 
she was not sure that any but one present un¬ 
derstood what she meant. That one now ad¬ 
dressed her. 

“The social atmosphere will be different, 
of course,” Waveney observed. “You have seen 
it at a time when people counted by reason of 
what they are and of the work that they are 
doing together ... You think that will 
end!” 

“It will end. Not only here but all the world 
over . . . All the strangers will go home and 
be strangers once more.” 

“England will never forget them nor how 
they helped,” Wroxeter loyally insisted; but 
Sidney, half-smiling, shook her head. 

“It is bound to be different. Who knows 
what will come after!” 

“Surely Labour isn’t going to make foolish 
demands on us!” Miss Theydon asked, turn¬ 
ing to Waveney, who was privately amused to 
see that she believed there still existed an US, 
who could yield to demands. 

“It is going to ask everything—and get it 
too, if you take my point,” came from Sir 
Bryan. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 143 


If we had a proper leader I shouldn’t 
bother, the host commented, passing candidly 
to the ancient shibboleth. “M'h shall worry 
through somehow.” 

“ Unless financially, we crash-” 

“The States won’t let us.” 


“How can they help it?” 

Sir Bryan supposed they had millions enough 
to help if they chose—but was a trifle hazy as 
to the means. 


“At all events,” Mrs. Ashburnham spoke 
again in the pause, “you all agree, it is evident 
that there is this feeling. Perhaps I feel it 
more because—at bottom, I am beginning to 
wonder if England is really and truly my home.” 

“You are an English wife.” 

“But that lasted such a little, little time!” 

Again, it was direct question and answer 
between her and Waveney, who had spoken to 
her as if no one else were present. The plea, 
the perplexity in her eyes were meant for him 
alone. The gossamer threads of sympathy 
which these days had woven, made for the 
moment a web, perceptibly isolating their talk. 
Wroxeter saw his sister looking anxious and 
that over Laura’s brow a shade had gathered. 
He broke the invisible veil with a story con¬ 
cerning Royalty in his youth, which was really 
too outrageous to be ignored. 








BOOK III 
LONDON 


m 





















CHAPTER XV 


Waveney returned to town next morning by the 
early train, while Miss Theydon and Mrs. Ash- 
burnham followed in a more leisurely manner 
at noon. Both of them felt relief to find their 
carriage filled. Miss Theydon, while impeccably 
civil, wore an air to suggest that, now the visit 
had come to an end, the acquaintance might as 
well follow suit. To this attitude Mrs. Ash- 
burnham responded with the most steadfast 
indifference; her eyes pensively regarding the 
landscape, never glanced at her travelling com¬ 
panion. Once indeed, she found herself study¬ 
ing the contrast between her own delicately 
pointed shoe, and the broadly shod foot of the 
other with a degree of positive satisfaction. 
Again, seized by mischievous impulse, she longed 
to tell Laura how intensely Lord Waveney dis¬ 
liked earrings, and especially jade ones. But 
her face said nothing, and she replied smilingly 
to the only observation Miss Theydon deigned 
to offer during the journey, which had ref¬ 
erence solely to the difficulty of obtaining a 
taxi at the end of it. Neither lady had taken 

147 


148 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


a maid—Miss Theydon abstinent from conscious 
virtue and Mrs. Ashburnham because she had 
never kept one. Perhaps it was for this reason, 
or because of her greater quickness and co¬ 
ordination, that, when London was reached, she 
had captured a vehicle and was seated in it 
some moments before the other had collected 
her various effects and was ready to leave the 
platform. Laura did not love her the more for 
this minor efficiency, which in her mind was 
due to Mrs. Ashburnham’s having emerged from 
the class whose business it is in life to obtain 
taxi-cabs for others, and whom, notwithstanding 
the hypocritical rapprochement forced on one 
by the War, she herself both dreaded and dis¬ 
liked. The two women parted with courteous 
expressions, and the relief which was natural 
under the circumstances; nor did Mrs. Ash¬ 
burnham think it necessary to offer to convey 
Miss Theydon to Cadogan Square. 

The apartment chosen by Harry Ashburnham 
just before he set off on that last journey, was 
situated in a retired corner of Mayfair and 
looked down on a sheltered and sunshiny gar¬ 
den, unknown to many people. Both of them 
loved Mayfair, but could not have afforded 
to live there, had not chance thrown in their 
way the rooms of a brother officer, whose duty 
called him elsewhere. He had been glad to sub¬ 
let to so distinguished a tenant and Harry Ash- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 149 

burnham had been able to furnish from the 
melancholy old house in the North where his 
boyhood has been spent. 

The rooms, by no means large, were well 
shaped and faced the west. They were compact 
and could be readily looked after by the one 
little maid whom their mistress had been fortu¬ 
nate enough to secure—the niece of an elderly 
retainer, whose mistress had been her friend. 
Giddy had been the quaintest and most faithful 
of a vanishing race; she had taken pride in 
training Dora in her duties, and the gentleness 
of Mrs. Ashburnham had made a permanent 
tie. It was pleasant to be welcomed home by 
Dora in her eighteenth century mobcap, her 
skin the color and texture of a peach, and her 
shining brown eyes—to find a belated lunch¬ 
eon spread on the dining-table and to note 
that the whole apartment glowed with lovely 
flowers. 

“They came in a box, Madam, which—seeing 
they was flowers, I made bold to open.” 

“Quite right.” 

“No card came with them, Madam, but about 
half an hour ago his Lordship rang up and 
said he would take the chance of finding you in 
at tea . . . Lord Waveney, he said the name 
was. It was lucky, wasn’t it, Madam? that I’d 
thought of the cakes at the pastry-cooks this 
very morning!” 



150 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


Mrs. Ashburnham showed less interest in the 
cake question than Dora had expected. Her 
expression had grown absent and she finished 
her luncheon in silence. Afterwards she stepped 
out upon the balcony and stood there a while 
looking down upon the Square below. The 
narrow paths wandered among tall trees, with 
entrances on Mount and South Audley Streets, 
and one under a stone archway to the street 
where Florence Nightingale had lived and died. 
It was retired enough, a sheltered, green refuge 
—with an ancient church at one end, tall school 
buildings at the other. Sidney often slipped 
within the church to sit in the candle-pierced 
dusk; rejoicing in the peace of it, although she 
was not of the faith. 

A constant chattering of little birds rose from 
the ivy-covered wall. On the green benches 
a few decent old men sat smoking and reading. 
A little Pekingese snuffed and scampered about 
. . . The sunshine caught the Square and Sid¬ 
ney’s window glowed in it. Beyond South 
Audley Street, Park Lane roared with motor 
lorries and omnibuses. Overhead hummed an 
aeroplane . • . later, she would see it returning 
into the very heart of the sunset, whence one’s 
imagination followed the ecstasy of that flight. 

Mrs. Ashburnham leaned her arms upon the 
railing, while the school children released at 
last, passed by below. Her mind moved vaguely 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 151 

among various thoughts . . . The school 

children had lost their rosy look in these last 
months . . . The hour of victory was near . . . 
London was quiet, breathlessly waiting for the 
end . . . When would it come? She must ask 
Waveney when he came to tea, but—was she 
really going to let him come to tea? The slow 
stir of her mind quickened—and his name struck 
her consciousness as with violence. What had 
happened to her? She had gone to Falmouth, 
still dragged, oppressed with sorrow and loss 
. . . inert, lethargic, seeing nothing ahead but 
years of pinching life—and not caring . . . 
Had contact with the Kendalls revived her latent 
Americanism—with all its sense of adventurous 
possibility, with all its restless vitality? Or 
had it been the visit to Wroxeter—the knowl¬ 
edge that life must be readjusted to meet a new 
world after the War—the meeting with Wave¬ 
ney again . . . ? 

She drew a sharp breath, remembering pain. 
The love which she had given to Adrian 
Romeyne, three years or more ago, had been as 
young and imaginative as it was passionate 
and pure. It was the type of love that so often 
flowers as an unsuspected bloom in the depths 
of sensitive youth, founded on hero-worship 
as well as on a sympathetic understanding. 
Working as he was against heavy odds, lonely 
and unhappy at home, Romeyne had not failed 



152 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


to become aware of it, to draw from it both 
comfort and stimulus . . . Still, the situation 
might never have resolved itself into anything 
more definite, but for a dramatic and terrible 
occurrence in which Sidney was Adrian’s only 
confidant, in which she had acted indeed as his 
and the Government’s agent in extorting a con¬ 
fession from that unhappy member of the Fil- 
mer family, whose vices had already cost them 
so dear. Blackmailed for vital information, 
weak because of past infamy, Lady Claire 
yielded at length to pressure from these two, 
pressure wielded by Sidney’s strength and 
skill. The horror and distress which the dis¬ 
covery brought to Sir Thomas Easterly’s sec¬ 
retary as it did to Lord Waveney, had sud¬ 
denly broken down all the barriers between 
them, thus showing their mutual dependence, 
thus revealing each to the other in a brief 
moment of passionate joy. 

Separated an instant after, the man had been 
overwhelmed with strong reaction. There was 
no place in his life at present for an irregular 
love affair—least of all one which threatened 
absorbing and serious consequences. The choice 
lay in his hand, for the girl was not a free 
agent and the fulfillment of the revelation must 
lie with him alone. Her sensitive intelligence 
and spirited fastidiousness made her in his eyes 
a creature wholly exquisite, not to be named in 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 153 

the same breath with heroines of like adventures. 

True was it also that of the two he was at 
that moment the less deeply in love, the more 
able to call a halt. Certainly he did so; he 
met her but once or twice thereafter. He heard 
of her marriage with a wince; but there fol¬ 
lowed a strong glow of self-approbation, that he 
had done no injury to the woman he loved. 

What he never knew and could not guess was 
that, to her different ideals, his self-sacrifice 
was of no importance unless it bound him for 
the future. To her the moment had been as a 
sacred betrothal, and his withdrawal had been 
almost in the nature of a betrayal. Her ignor¬ 
ance of the world had been as profound as her 
training had been idealistic. She had looked 
forward, with a rapture of renunciation, to a 
barren constancy which alone should unite them 
unless life was kinder. She knew he wished to 
spare her suffering, but womanlike she wished 
to suffer. 

Many months passed ere she became calmer. 
Everywhere she heard people talk of Wave- 
ney’s intention to remarry in his own circle. 
For the first time she was faced by the cold and 
ugly facts of her position, under which passion 
must needs evaporate. She was young; her love 
had been expressed in but a single interview, it 
could not live on nothing, and he made no sign 
. . . Harry Ashburnham had attached himself 


154 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


to her by every quality of friendship and char¬ 
acter, and his proposal followed on his return 
from Siberia, late in 1917. They were married 
before the New Year and shortly afterwards 
settled themselves in the flat, where they spent 
a month before he was summoned on that final 
duty. Her married life had lasted in all but 
thirty-nine days. 

It was of these days she was thinking as she 
leaned on her balcony railing in the westering 
sun. Yes: they had been happy; she had heart¬ 
ily loved and honoured her poor Harry, he was 
a rare creature. She had been grateful to him 
for his attitude of stimulus and confidence; for 
his simple expectation that she would make the 
most of her abilities. Together, they had 
planned the books she was to read during his 
absence, the languages she was to study, the 
reviewing work she was to do for one of the 
critical weeklies. All this had been brought to 
nothingness by the German torpedo, and when 
that fine, eager nature had passed into silence, 
with all its talents and potentialities, life seemed 
to Sidney to lose forever its quality of romance. 

To meet Waveney again after this tragic 
interim had at first merely revived the pain of 
these memories, for he had staunchly admired 
her husband; but his unconsciousness of any 
strain in their own relation had also been a 
surprise. His interest in her society had piqued 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE ' 155 

her, and she was moved by a not unnatural de¬ 
sire to disturb his irritating serenity, to try 
her own power over him against that of Laura 
Theydon. How pitifully easy it had been to 
draw him away! 

The new quality in his interest had not 
escaped her—evidently in his eyes Mrs. Ash¬ 
burnham, a guest at Wroxeter Old House, was 
not quite the same person as Sir Thomas East¬ 
erly’s private secretary . . . Very well . . . 
then it only remained for her to play the part, 
and he should look in vain for the hero- 
worshipper . . . ! 

Her first hesitation in regard to the Ameri¬ 
can journey had been perfectly sincere—but 
events were shaking it. If Waveney’s con¬ 
sideration of her had heightened because she 
was Mrs. Ashburnham—how if she became a 
rich Mrs. Ashburnham. . . ? 

Sidney’s lip curled. The English sneered at 
the dollar, but nowhere on earth was money so 
reverenced! She had better try to get all she 
could—and then—we shall see! Perhaps he 
might be further stirred—pained even. Mean¬ 
while, he had said he would come to tea, had 
he—quite taking his welcome for granted? Sid¬ 
ney smiled a slow smile to herself, and after a 
moment’s reflection, she went in to the telephone. 



CHAPTER XVI 


The War Trade Advisory Committee generally 
held its meeting on a Monday in a pleasant 
room, whose windows looked forth upon the 
yellowing trees of St. James ’ Park. Sir Thomas 
Easterly presided, a handsome, vigorous, elderly 
man much aged since 1914, but whose ruddy 
face and straight back still bore witness to his 
placid nerves and unimpaired health. Next him 
sat Mr. Bunting of the Board of Trade, a jumpy 
little man from the Midlands, fussy and self- 
important and given to unexpected irritabilities. 
Grant-Forsyth, M.P., who faced him at the long 
table, was a notable example of the business 
Englishman of the new era, much respected by 
the House for his sound knowledge of finance. 
Lord John Filmer, who was the Chairman of an 
important Railway, bore an immobile counte¬ 
nance, and moved his pale head from side to 
side in the act of listening, which gave him a 
resemblance to a handsome bird. Waveney sat 
at the end and looked out of the window . . . 

The day, after the rain, was softly misty. 
Very faint cries of newsboys came from the open 
space in front of the Horse-Guards. The 
business which lay before the Committee had 

156 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 157 

been disposed of in its customary manner. 
There had been the usual lack of information, 
which Lord Waveney had supplied; the usual 
hesitations, which Lord Waveney had resolved; 
the usual doubts, which Lord Waveney had dis¬ 
pelled ; and the usual decisions, which Lord 
Waveney had determined. The Committee was 
conscious of having worked very hard, and now 
that its session was drawing to a close, rather 
welcomed the pause which was afforded it, 
while the Chairman “made a few notes.”* 
These notes of Sir Thomas’s—which he made 
with solemnity—were well known to his com¬ 
panions as a cause of some confusion to his 
own and their own minds. Since Sir Thomas 
had lost his invaluable secretary, Miss Lea, he 
did not always know what to do with them. 
Thus the words “Crude Potash” written on a 
sheet of paper and unaccompanied by any ex¬ 
planatory data,—had escaped from his pocket 
at the Carlton Club and caused a brief excite¬ 
ment there; being held to refer to an unknown 
racehorse, in training for the Derby! This had 
rather shocked Sir Thomas, but he still held it 
part of his duty as an Englishman during the 
present crisis, to go on collecting these refer¬ 
ences. With his glasses very far down on his 
nose, therefore, he was occupied in carefully 
writing out the word “ Diphenylamine, ” in order 
that he might remember in future the vital 


158 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


significance of that somewhat cryptic substance. 
The Committee waited patiently for him to 
finish, and meanwdiile one or two of its members 
occupied themselves looking over a sheet of 
names furnished by the Allied Committee in the 
States, containing those American firms who de¬ 
sired trade premits in order to complete their 
contracts in Great Britain . . . 

Waveney took the sheet and glanced down 
it: “Steinmetz & Cramm,” “Jones, Smith & 

Co.,” “Laub and Haggerty-” The latter 

words brought a fleeting remembrance to his 
mind and he drew his brows together . . . 
“Laub”— wasn’t he the man who was trying 
to cheat Mrs. Ashburnham? If so—the firm 
must be black-listed without fail. He would 
have a quiet word with Easterly about it. 

“Now that’s done,” said Sir Thomas cheer¬ 
fully, taking off his eye-glasses and looking 
about the table . . . “I think we may con¬ 
gratulate ourselves to-day on our clean slate, 
gentlemen! . . . Just a moment, while Lord 
Waveney clears up that little matter which we 
laid aside earlier in the meeting . . 

Waveney, catching his eye, began to speak 
slowly at first, with suavity, but with an appeal 
backed by knowledge and judgment. The “little 
matter” to which the Chairman referred, was 
one of those little matters on which large issues 
depend. Brought before the Committee by 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 159 

Bunting, he had by his tactless presentation suc¬ 
ceeded in running counter to Lord John’s un¬ 
compromising Toryism, Grant-Forsyth’s inerad¬ 
icable prejudices in favor of Banking custom, 
and Sir Thomas Easterly’s anti-Home Rule 
doctrine. Bunting had come very near to upset¬ 
ting the apple cart, which still remained dan¬ 
gerously tilted—the apples once scattered would 
be nobody’s business to gather, up again and 
the Board of Trade would remain peevishly 
inert. This must not happen: Waveney, as so 
often before, must come to the rescue . . . 

His mind as he talked, applied its force here 
and there, where most needed, as a wrestler 
uses his muscles. First, the wounded amour- 
propre of Bunting must be soothed, which had 
been ruffled . . . Lord John must be shown that 
acquiescence meant sound Conservative princi¬ 
ples in general, with the chance of a new ad¬ 
herent to that camp in particular . . . Prece¬ 
dent must be cited to Grant-Forsyth, with the 
plain indication of a middle course which he 
should himself and of his own initiative come 
to perceive and propose . . . Easterly, one 

didn’t have to handle—one trusted. 

Fifteen minutes later the compromise had 
been effected . . . Bunting had been recalled 
to a sense of his own importance as represent¬ 
ing the majesty of British commerce; Grant- 
Forsyth had been congratulated on his re- 



160 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

markably ingenious solution of the difficulty 
and was chattering about it to Lord John Fil- 
mer in a manner so open-minded as to cause 
Lord John to mark him for a potential poli¬ 
tical ally—Easterly and his friend were hav¬ 
ing a quiet exchange of words before separating: 

“ Thanks again, my dear chap . . . but you 
know . . . You’ve been to Wroxeter, I under¬ 
stand? Did I hear that Mrs. Ashburnham had 
been there too . . . Was she well?” 

“Oh yes, quite . . . Any message? I expect 
to see her this afternoon ...” 

Surprise was a primitive emotion which Sir 
Thomas never exhibited. 

“Give her my love— our love, I should say, 
my dear fellow . . . Tell her I carry on but 
poorly without her!” 

“I shall take pains to do so.” 

He was released. Twenty minutes later, in 
the act of handing hat and stick to Dora in the 
hall, Waveney became aware of voices in the 
drawing-room and suffered the most disagree¬ 
able moment of a hard day! Difficult, exacting 
as it had been, he had solaced himself during a 
dozen interviews, in all their needed yielding and 
firmness, their alternate vigilance and flattery 
which must be maintained in an atmosphere of 
unruffled serenity—with the thought of the hour 
that awaited him, when the strain might be 
laid aside and he might luxuriate in the pure 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 161 

freedom of being himself. His disappointment 
was almost childishly keen and there was a 
second during which he was tempted to pick 
up hat .and stick and escape . . . But of course 
he did not: he permitted Dora to announce him. 

The flowers he had sent were everywhere 
glowing in mauve and gold against grey tinted 
walls. Mrs. Ashburnham’s soft grey dress had 
folds of ivory lace for its only ornament . . . 
How big her eyes, how warmly electric was the 
touch of her slim, smooth hand . . . 

The furniture of the room was of oak so old 
and black that it could have come from nowhere 
but the Ashburnhams ’ old home in Cumberland. 
There were no gimcracks ... No home-made 
water colours . . . the whole atmosphere en¬ 
folded one in delicate repose. She wore no 
earrings! He dropped into his chair with an 
imperceptible sigh of content and looked about 
him, while his hostess busied herself behind 
a tea-service of ancient Chinese porcelain . . . 
The touch of colour burned in her cheeks . . . 
Waveney was glad he had sent so many mauve 
and golden flowers—they suited the room. He 
was so happy in the pure restiulness of it that 
he almost forgave the other person for being 
there. Also he was surprised and interested 
to find out who this other person proved to be. 

The little man, whose astute, timid face, nar¬ 
rowing from the spread of brow and large ears 


162 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


to a pointed grey beard gave him the air of a 
converted satyr in a medieval print, was no less 
a person than Gervase Fallon, known by many 
people to be the best-informed man of the mo¬ 
ment on the confused Continental situation. 
Born of an Irish father and a Russian mother ; 
gifted as a linguist to that rare point where a 
man can pick up two or three languages in 
the same conversation, use them and lay them 
down again as he would a spoon or a fork; 
revolutionary at heart, yet conservative by tem¬ 
perament; too great a savant to be wholly a 
politician, and too much of a politician to be 
wholly a savant; this curious being passed to 
and fro in the tumultuous underworld which lay 
just beneath the huge activities of the War. 
So deep had he delved into intricate bureau¬ 
cracies; so often penetrated arcana to find a 
carefully guarded emptiness unvisited by any 
Deity; so constantly was he forced to translate 
patriotic phrases to find their real meaning lie 
in motives of political expediency or private 
self-seeking that his mood had passed beyond 
the vague shadows of cynicism, into the total 
darkness of a complete pessimism. His outlook 
was so black that it had become a journalistic 
catchword; one wit always referred to him as 
“Mr. Gloom.” 

There was no man whom Adrian more desired 
to talk with at this moment; the very week be- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 163 

fore he had made efforts to find Fallon, but 
he was notoriously elusive and his usual address 
was a Channel steamer. To come upon him 
here in this quiet intimacy was certainly sur¬ 
prising. Waveney—looking about the room— 
began to realize why so many of the books and 
pamphlets piled on Mrs. Ashburnham’s large, 
businesslike desk were concerned with Russia, 
the Balkans and the Congress of Vienna. It 
was of Russia they were talking when Waveney 
entered and he settled himself back in a chair 
with his tea to listen attentively to all that 
Fallon was saying in his flat, extinguished little 
voice. Russia—it was there the danger now 
lay for the world and especially for England 
. . . The battle-ground had shifted from the 
French front to Petrograd ... It no longer 
mattered if the Germans gave in this month 
or next . . . Already the emphasis had passed 
from the purely military side . . . That was 
done and over . . . The War before the War 
was ended and the Real War had begun—the 
War of the Classes and the Masses ... in 
which Civilization was to go crashing down the 
slide of non-production into starvation and in¬ 
dustrial catastrophe. Already in Russia the 
Bolsheviki were stamping on the last feeble 
sparks of endeavor and order—night was fall¬ 
ing over that vast, prostrate country, a winter- 
night was drawing on, under whose curtain 


164 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

twenty millions of people were going to die of 
cold, starvation and pestilence. Already the 
groaning misery of the eighteenth and nine¬ 
teenth centuries was being repeated and deep¬ 
ened in that enormous section of Europe. . . . 
The earth was in . eclipse and already one 
segment lay in a black shadow which was 
creeping on. Russia had disappeared: Tur¬ 
key, Austria, were disappearing: Germany, 
struggling and ailing, saw herself desperately 
passing into the grip of that Nothingness and 
yet knew no way to withdraw from the im¬ 
passe. France and Italy were showing signs 
of the disease in an intense restlessness: Eng¬ 
lish labour was by turn violent and sullen, so 
that no one knew just how far the infection 
had spread—only the United States, still fat 
and well-nourished from her years of neutrality 
and plenty, stood firm. The disease was one of 
malnutrition and her turn was yet to come if 
it came at all . . . 

Thus Fallon in his mild voice prophesied of 
horrors to come and Waveney listened, closely, 
attentively. He himself felt no such extrava¬ 
gant dread—and said so; disturbance of course 
there must be—but the English Empire and the 
States to boot formed a future make-weight that 
in his mind made stability inevitable. Fallon 
did not count on the Empire, evidently? 

“No, I don’t!” the other maintained shaking 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 165 

his head: “Can you count on Egypt! I am 
asking you! On India! On Ireland! Since 
you have done nothing whatever in Russia-” 

“But we could do nothing in Russia-” in¬ 

terposed Waveney imperturbably. 

“We might have,” Mrs. Ashburnham came 
in. “I know what Harry thought when he was 
in Siberia ... If your Mandarins had only 
had enterprise and initiative ... be wrote 
you a long letter about it.” 

“I remember, and I brought his views before 
the proper quarters . . . But that was a bad 
winter, that of 1916-1917. We were stretching 
every muscle and nerve to that one task—of 
holding the line in France. Do not forget—at 
that time the French were tired out and the 
Americans had not yet come in. It was not 
possible to spare the energy, the time, the skilled 
men, the troops or the money for the purpose 
of stiffening that immense and inert mass.” 

“Harry always thought you could have done a 
great deal-” she persisted. 

“And I always had the greatest possible re¬ 
spect for your husband’s opinion,” was Wave¬ 
ney’s reply. 

“As a matter of fact the thing had gone 
beyond England—quite beyond her,” said Fal¬ 
lon, “she’s too old and too tired. The States 
may save the world: it is at least possible. Some 
of these strange, shrewd, fellow countrymen 





166 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


of yours, Mrs. Ashburnham, may be able to 
help—who knows? Life has prepared them for 
the task, their industrial civilization has been 
more alive, more flexible, more equitable than 
ours.” 

Sidney thought of George Rendall and nodded. 

‘ 4 While I am not prepared wholly to agree 
with you,” Waveney remarked meditatively, 
“yet in one point I do—heartily. Our industrial 
life suffers frightfully from a lack of flexibility 
and our mechanical civilization is sick of pure 
ennui. The States have the advantage of us 
there. We are too much in grooves — the 
grooves of habit and Trades Unionism. A 
country where the first generation may be (say) 
industrial, the second professional, the third 
something else, offers a high stimulus to life. 
Here we have dulled the race industrially by 
making it harder for the individual to break 
away. We have kept the farmer’s son, a 
farmer, and the weaver’s son, a weaver, too 
long. With the American, life has less the 
aspect of a task to be done—than of a race 
to be run for—a prize to be won.” 

“Well,” Fallon agreed rising, “there’s only 
one question I am asking and that is: in this 
sickness of the nations is Germany the only 
one that is going to survive?” 

The talk lasted only a few minutes longer, 
during which Waveney questioned Fallon di- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 167 

rectly on certain special points and then the 
journalist took his leave. 

Among the letters which Sidney found await¬ 
ing her at home, was one bearing a Derbyshire 
postmark and reading as follows: 

“My dear Niece: 

It has always been my habit to visit town in May and in 
. October and now that this horrid war seems likely to end, I 
propose to resume the custom, occupying’ my usual rooms at 
Robinson’s Hotel, on Friday next. No doubt you will come 
to see me there on the following day if you are disengaged as 
I suppose you are—since being a stranger you cannot as yet 
have any large London acquaintance. We should have met 
before if poor Harry had been alive; and I still feel how¬ 
ever short your honeymoon, that a part of it should have 
been spent in a visit to the Grange. However, all that is 
ended, and now that I understand you have returned from 
Cornwall and are about to pass the winter in London, sans 
chaperone, I feel it my duty to come up to town and see for 
myself what you are about. In my young days it would have 
been thought better taste if you had retired to some quiet 
cheap country place during your widowhood; particularly as I 
suppose you to be a young woman of some personal attractions 
or Harry would hardly have so far forgotten himself as to 
marry an American. I always think it best to be frank and so 
I don’t mind saying that his doing so was very upsetting to 
me,—especially when I heard from my cousin Blanche Allott 
that instead of being rich, as I thought you all were ,—you 
had even been professionally employed. But the War, they 
tell me, has changed a great deal in that respect so I shan’t 
hold it against you. I must say you write a good letter, nor 
can I forget that you have never asked me to continue the 
£200 I always allowed Harry as my heir. So perhaps we had 
better meet and have a talk, when you will find me disposed 
to be your friend, and I need not say that my friendship will 
be quite indispensable to you in this country. 

Please tell Mrs. Chuck, the housekeeper at Robinson’s that 


168 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


my sheets must be aired at least 24 hours before I use them, 
and that I do not intend to pay for coals a sixpence more 
than I did last spring 1 a year ago. These people, even the 
best of them, use the War as an excuse to fleece one, and I 
know London. Also you had better go to the place where 
they issue the food tickets and tell them I am coming (men¬ 
tion the Grange, Cubiton) that I am past ninety, and must 
have plenty of meat. I remain, my dear Sidney, 

Your affectionate, 

Aunt Clara.” 


There was much in this epistle to bring 
Harry’s oft-repeated and vivid description of 
his old relation before Sidney’s eyes, while she 
knew enough of England to take its blunt 
phrases for no more than what they were 
worth. So she attended to the writer’s rather 
inconvenient demands as best she might, and be¬ 
took herself to the small South Kensington hotel 
on the appointed afternoon with a good deal of 
amusement and curiosity. Mrs. Cubitt (or Mrs. 
Ashburnham-Cubitt as she preferred to be 
called) was a character even in her own county, 
which she ruled with all the force of a 
strong individuality backed by the tradition 
of generations. To the tradition of being an 
Ashburnham, she had added the solid impetus 
gained by having married a rich Yorkshireman, 
a combination which carried her influence irre¬ 
sistibly over the countryside. She was gener¬ 
ous, impetuous and quite without sensitiveness, 
while her retired life and affluent circumstances 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 169 

had immunized her wholly from the changes in 
the social fabric, which others could not ignore. 

Such was the lady Mrs. Ashburnham found 
seated by the fire that dull afternoon, with her 
small feet straight before her on a cushion and 
her crotched stick ready to her hand. Evidently 
she had never been either tall or handsome 
and now in her great age she gave merely the 
effect of dominance as expressed by her big 
nose, bright eyes, and shrunken body shrouded 
in furs. Under the furs she was rather elabo¬ 
rately dressed; her lace cap was of the shape 
associated with the Queen of Scots; rings of 
size and brilliance adorned the two middle fin¬ 
gers of each hand while some really tremen¬ 
dous specimens of the jeweller’s art were scat¬ 
tered about her person. Her manner in greet¬ 
ing her nephew’s wife was not unfriendly; she 
held the girl’s hand in her small, sparkling 
claw and looked her up and down with nods of 
approval. 

‘ 4 You ’re rather pale for what we consider 
fine-lookin’,” was her verdict. 4 ‘Still, you look 
easy to manage and I dare say we shall get 
on. Harry, of course, might have had any gell 
in the county, but I’ve lived long enough 
to know that men never do what one expects 
. . .Yes, you’ll do . . . quite. Somebody 
said your people came from Boston, and they’re 
more like us, ain’t they, in that part?” 


170 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


Sidney hastened to reassure Aunt Clara as 
to the Englishness of New England, a matter 
on which, by the way, she had her own doubts, 
and she answered the next very plain questions 
concerning her family and home in a manner as 
direct as the lady’s own. 

“Well, no doubt it might have been worse,” 
commented the philosopher in furs. “You give 
one a straight answer and you ain’t touchy. I 
must say it’s a disappointment you’re not havin’ 
a shillin’ . . . Such swarms of you as keep 
runnin’ over here with your pockets simply 
stuffed; fillin’ the railway carriages and hotels 
and demoralizin’ everything—it’s hard luck that 
Harry had to pick out one of the poor ones!” 

Aunt Clara’s shrewd little eyes were search¬ 
ing Sidney’s face during these observations and 
there is no doubt that the quiet poise with which 
she replied to them and added that she was 
entirely satisfied with things as they were, fa¬ 
vourably impressed the old woman. Sidney 
was neither shy nor forward, neither awkward 
nor cocksure; she was what Aunt Clara termed 
il quite the gentlewoman” and that potentate 
thereupon modified her tone of patronage and 
told a long story about Harry’s boyhood, “he 
was a devil my dear!” was her parenthesis— 
in a tone of much relish. The younger woman 
hoped she had forgotten the money question but 
it was not a question Aunt Clara was likely 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 171 

to forget. She reopened it, however, in a vein 
of greater urbanity, and when she thumped her 
stick violently on the floor it was only to em¬ 
phasize her points. 

“What I always did for Harry I was glad to 
do, my dear,” she remarked and there was 
pride in her voice. “Harry was splendid al¬ 
ways. He was my heir—money and land— 
’cause they ought to go together. But now he’s 
gone and who’ll get everything?—that other 
nephew of mine, the writin’ fella! He never 
went to France, but stayed at home and wrote 
to the Times tellin’ ’em all how to fight!” Her 
sniff was ironical. “Now the problem is what’s 
to be done for you. I don’t suppose,” she con¬ 
cluded cunningly, “that Harry let you think 
I’d do anything special—now did he?” 

“Harry never talked to me about money at 
all,” the younger woman said with a convincing 
dignity. “We had barely six weeks together. 
Harry wasn’t the kind of person to worry about 
the future. He knew there would be a pension 
and a little of my own-” 

“Precious little!” from Aunt Clara’s chair. 

“And he had confidence in me—in me because 
he knew I was quite able to take care of myself 
if need be,” finished Mrs. Ashburnham, with 
a sturdiness of emphasis that caused the old 
eyes watching her to blink a little. 

“Well, I shall talk it over with my solicitor 




172 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


and I have no doubt we shall see eye to eye 
in this matter/ ’ Mrs. Cubitt said, with softer 
inflections, but broke off impatiently as her maid 
entered with a card, “ Devil take you, Mackenzie, 
what is it now?” 

The maid, an elderly woman, looked comically 
alarmed, hut Mrs. Cubitt’s wrath passed away 
when she read the name presented. “It’s 
Blanche Allott, of course, ten minutes too early! 
hut she’ll have to come up. Now my dear,” 
she turned to Sidney as the maid disappeared, 
“you will come again in a day or so and I’ll 
see what I can do. Yes, yes!” as the other made 
a deprecatory gesture. “We’re gettin’ on very 
well and I like spirit. But perhaps it would 
be best to give you a home instead of an allow¬ 
ance,” this with characteristically sudden 
change of plan. “How’d you fancy that, now? 
You seem a good gell, and I’m often lonely at 
the Grange. Besides you could be useful to 
me there in all sorts of ways.” 

The imminent approach of the Lady Blanche 
Allott spared Sidney from the necessity of mak¬ 
ing a definite answer to this appalling propo¬ 
sition. She successfully concealed her horrified 
amusement under an appeal to Aunt Clara’s 
business instincts by alluding to the terms of 
her present lease which had yet some months to 
run, and then hastened to retire after the proper 
farewells. She was still trying not to laugh as 


the house on SMITH SQUARE 173 

she passed Lady Blanche in the hall with brief 
greetings, and heard her boom out her welcome 
to her relative, but once in the street she gave 
way wholly, to the amazement of the hall- 
porter. 

On her way home Sidney reflected that on the 
whole the interview had been less trying than 
she had expected. Although she didn’t want 
Aunt Clara’s money, yet she was not above 
feeling glad that the old lady should like her 
well enough to wish to give it to her. Mrs. 
Ashburnham, indeed, had knocked about the 
world long enough to be quite human in these 
matters. 

The conversation between Lady Blanche and 
her cousin was long and animated. It ranged 
from lamentations over the Government and 
the rise in prices to rejoicings over the near 
prospects of peace. It touched, with a light 
candor refreshing to both parties, upon the 
faults and failings of most of their family and 
acquaintance, reflecting as these did the faults 
and failings of what both ladies felt to be an un- 
Christian age. Incidentally, Mrs. Cubitt was 
led; to express her pleased surprise in the mat¬ 
ter of the young lady who had just left her. 
“Poor Harry’s widow,” she informed Lady 
Blanche, had turned out so much better than 
she had looked for, that she was seriously con¬ 
sidering asking her to make her home at the 


174 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


Grange, where assistance in the village was 
very much needed. 

The other drew her eyebrows together. She 
was a placid person, by no means malicious 
and with the direct kindness of her order. Un¬ 
fortunately, this order can become very hard 
when its patronage is rejected. Had the Lady 
Blanche found Sidney Ashburnham inclined to 
look up to her and seek her guidance with the 
deference she held proper to their respective 
positions, no one would have been kinder. Un¬ 
fortunately, Sidney had done nothing of the 
kind. Not only had she manifested a complete 
independence of “the Family’’ but she had 
flirted with Wroxeter, who was getting too old 
for that sort of thing in his sister’s opinion, 
and she had—most unforgivable of all!—ex¬ 
ercised her attraction so as to interfere with 
the plans laid by her superiors for Laura They- 
don’s settlement in life. All this made it de¬ 
sirable that Mrs. Ashburnham should not be 
encouraged. Now old Mrs. Cubitt lived alone, 
isolated from family influences and subject to 
sudden caprices. 

Surely, it was not to be borne, that this young 
person should obtain a foothold in such a house¬ 
hold, where she might use undisturbed an in¬ 
fluence leading in due time to an important 
position in that family, where money was sadly 
to lack. With money who could be sure of her? 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 175 

Even Wroxeter himself was not safe! and Lady 
Blanche grew chilly at the thought. 

However, she was wise enough to begin 
slowly. 

“I should not imagine that she was at all the 
kind of person you would want at the Orange, 
Clara,” was her cautious observation. Whereat, 
as she hoped, old Mrs. Cubitt thumped her stick 
on the floor and sharply asked: 

“Why not?” 


CHAPTER XVII 


The odd sense of disorientation which affected 
Waveney, followed him in his work and des¬ 
troyed the restfulness of his scant leisure. He 
seemed to carry it with him to the Foreign Of¬ 
fice, the Lords and the Reform Club, conscious 
of it as a background even to the mounting ex¬ 
ultation of those days. But he failed to find 
that it was shared by friends or colleagues, 
whose mood was rather one of relieved bewil¬ 
derment. As the retreat continued and the ice- 
jam here and there cracked with the shriek of 
helpless human atoms caught in these forces, as 
the ebb left one after another fiercely disputed 
point in Allied hands—England found herself 
blinking, as it were, before the strong glare of 
victory. So long had people borne the stiffened 
lip and steadied eye that they had lost the habit 
of relaxing into confidence . . . meeting, they 
spoke of victory with bated breath, fearing the 
Grods might hear. They had so often been dis¬ 
appointed ! 

Had anyone told Waveney that he should be¬ 
hold the end of the nightmare with such grave 
disquiet, he would have found it hard to be¬ 
lieve. But the mood grew more definite as he 

176 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 177 

felt that the problems and situations of his coun¬ 
try as well as his individual problems and situa¬ 
tion, had become more rather than less compli¬ 
cated by this ending. The attitude of Capital, 
purblind and timid, of labour arrogant and 
short-sighted; the exhaustion, which made the 
average man long to give up the strain of self- 
denial; the absence of either intellect or per¬ 
sonal magnetism in the leadership of affairs; the 
suspicion of rivalry among parties; the chronic 
revolution in Ireland, in Egypt and also prob¬ 
ably in India—all these conditions made but a 
black future. Moreover he felt that his own las¬ 
situde—which was partly physical and nervous— 
furnished a key to the weariness of others. 
Never had he been so dissatisfied with his task 
or with himself. 

All these considerations served to modify his 
disappointment concerning the Ambassadorship, 
a blow to his pride which would otherwise have 
been more sharply felt. He carried the note he 
had received to Mrs. Ashburnham, and watched 
the curl of her indignant lip as she read it. It 
was unofficial, from an important source, and 
stripped of diplomatic verbiage remained to the 
effect that his name had better be withdrawn in 
connection with that appointment. As peace 
drew near the situation had changed: the Presi¬ 
dent of the United States—a doctrinnaire ideal¬ 
ist, in Foreign Office eyes—was certain to 



178 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


play a prominent role during the negotiations. 
It was whispered that he might abandon prece¬ 
dent and come himself to Europe to exert his 
influence. If so, Washington would cease to be 
the strategic centre and the question of its Am¬ 
bassador were wisely postponed. To all intents 
and purposes the Chancelleries of the world 
would all be temporarily, at least, congregated 
in Geneva, Brussels or Versailles. Waveney 
must be patient; this was not his moment. After 
all, the letter delicately intimated, he had never 
identified himself with the present Government 
and future posts were much more likely to be 
allotted to the more open adherents of the Prem¬ 
ier—than to a mere Liberal of the Classic school. 

When Sidney raised her eyes from this epistle, 
he met them with a slight shrug. 

“What,” he asked her, “do you think of that 
last sentence? If anything could bring me into 
agreement with the writer—that would do it.” 

“You know what I think—that it is too stupid 
to be even annoying.” 

“Annoying? Oh, I never thought of it . . . 
besides, I am tired.” 

Plainly, he was very tired; and his eyes clung 
to her quiet figure as if drawing rest from the 
sight of it. 

“These hours,” he said, “are—do you real¬ 
ize?—the only ones in my day when I may speak 
my mind. Most men are more fortunate—they 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 179 

have the evenings—family life of one sort or 
another—but I have been, I have been for years 
very much alone.” 

She assented gravely. The fog had settled 
down early without, so they had been glad to 
draw the curtains. The little room was tilled 
with the soft glow of firelight, and it lit up his 
bloodless face as he leaned forward towards the 
hearth. 

“Do you know,” Adrian continued, abruptly, 
“that I have often thought of getting out alto¬ 
gether?” 

“I do not wonder—you need it. . . . ” 

“Perhaps after all this . . . when one can, 
I shall go down and hide myself in the New For¬ 
est and busy myself going over some old notes 
I made the year I was in the East—dealing with 
the situation there as I saw it . . . I wonder— 
I wonder if I might show them to you and get 
your opinion?” 

Her face lit up with pleasure and he was con¬ 
tent—content in a deeper sense than he had ever 
known. Sine they left Wroxeter Old House 
there had been nothing to baffle or disturb him 
in their relation. ... It had the steadiness of 
pure friendship. He brought no self-conscious¬ 
ness into it—he felt none. He knew only that 
as the day drew on toward five o’clock, he began 
to look forward to the quiet room, the fire, their 
talk, as a man looks forward to his home. 


180 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

From this quiet enjoyment he was roused by 
Sidney’s asking him with a touch of hesitation: 

“Do you remember Harry’s old aunt in Derby¬ 
shire ? ’ ’ 

“Mrs. Ashburnham-Cubitt of the Grange? 
Very well indeed. She is a most amazing old 
person—quite a character in short, a survival 
of the Georgian rather than the Victorian era. 
. . . Have you seen her? You told me I think, 
that she was coming up.” 

“Yes, I saw her two or three days ago, and I 
expected to go again to-day. We had a very 
pleasant talk. She was blunt, but that I under¬ 
stand; and certainly I left her in the highest 
good humour. . . . In fact,” continued Sid¬ 

ney, trying to smile and speak gayly, “she asked 
me to come to her, to .make the Grange my 
home. . . . And—and—but you had best read 
what she says.” 

Puzzled, Adrian took the letter. 


“My dear Niece: 

As I told you, I always believe in being frank; and so 
am writing to say that on further consideration I have de¬ 
cided that you would not be at all the sort of person I should 
wish to have with me at the Grange. I hear from more than 
one source that you have a great many Radicals among your 
friends; and that you have shown no inclination to be guided 
by our Family. Also, I am told you are extremely fond of 
admiration and that would not suit me in the least, in a com¬ 
panion, I mean. I should not wish you to look for any ad¬ 
miration while under my roof; and an independent disposi¬ 
tion would be very inconvenient in my household. I have 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 181 

always heard that Americans were the most independent of 
all the Colonials, but in your case I had hoped better. I can¬ 
not conceal that all this has disappointed and vexed me very 
much; and of course there is now no question of my assist¬ 
ing you financially or socially. Since you are so independent 
of the Family, you can hardly expect the Family to take you 
up, whatever Wroxeter may do; and that I can assure you, 
may be a disadvantage rather than the reverse. I regret my 
mistake, and will add that we had probably better say good¬ 
bye here and now and spare an interview which might be 
disagreeable to us both. I leave London in a day or two, 
as I am very much upset.” 

When Adrian lifted his eyes to her’s, there 
was a gleam of laughter in them, but he could 
see that his friend was hurt. He ran over the 
epistle again with comments: 

“ ‘I hear from more than one source.’ Well, I 
can guess what one may he. . . . ‘ Radicals 

among your friends’ tchk, that is, of course, my¬ 
self. . . . Here is no mystery ... it is all 
quite plain ... do not let it give you an in¬ 
stant’s concern.” 

“But it does ... it must! I did not think 
I had an enemy in the world!” 

Waveney’s slow smile responded. “The suc¬ 
cessful always make enemies,” he observed, 
“and you are one of the most successful peo¬ 
ple I have ever met.” 

“I never asked that old woman for anything!” 
Mrs. Ashburnham indignantly assured him. “I 
should never have lived with her ... I didn’t 
want her money. ... I all but told her so. 
I can support myself.” 


182 THE HOUSE ON SMITH* SQUARE 

“That was the trouble,—she acknowledges it. 
She expected and wanted dependence. . . . 
But is the affair important! Brush it aside; for¬ 
get it. That you should have an enemy is dis¬ 
concerting, but not uncommon. . . . The world 
is wide and this old lady is ninety-odd and lives 
ten miles from the railway.” 

She felt he was right but her vexation was 
slow to yield. “It makes me feel all the more 
that I am a stranger,” she restlessly uttered. 
‘‘ It makes me want to go back! ’ ’ and she was by 
way of being snubbed when Adrian fixed a calm 
eye on her, remarking gently cold: “I do not 
think, you know, that the malice of women is 
national! ’ ’ 

Nevertheless the rebuke took effect and caused 
her to put the incident out of her thought be¬ 
fore Adrian did. At the bottom of his mind and 
knowing his world; it made him a little uneasy. 

Shortly after this conversation he paid a 
visit he had long contemplated, which was sud¬ 
denly made easy for him by the loan of a motor 
from a friend on the Staff. He left Smith 
Square about two, flashed northward and ran 
out Watling Street for an hour or more. His 
destination was Beddingfield, the seat of the 
Marquess of Beauvray, where one of the last 
of England’s great Victorian nobles dwelt in 
a retirement confirmed by many tragedies. 
The motor was powerful and smooth; the au- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 183 


tumn afternoon still held its sunshine. Mist lay 
on the hills: the busy birds hastened to and 
fro over the fields. Adrian had sunk so deep in 
thought that he did not rouse until the car 
paused before the great ornamental iron gates, 
with the couchant lions topping them on either 
hand. Then, as it purred up the long slope of 
avenue, he noted with regret that the trees of 
the Park, the shrubbery and the lawns all 
showed the forced neglect of these long four 
years. For Adrian, the place held poignant 
memories; and he found himself more agi¬ 
tated by them than he could have believed 
possible. When he came in sight of the 
house—a vast Palladian building, stretching 
its white arcades right and left into elaborate¬ 
ly composed terraces—he saw that the marble 
vases bordering these terraces stood* empty of 
bloom—no longer filled with geraniums which 
caused them to blaze scarlet in the sun. A 
vital memory possessed him of the last time 
he had so beheld them: and when they seemed to 
symbolize in their glow of color, a glow in his 
life which he seemed forever renouncing. Again 
he suffered a stab of that forgotten pain—and 
he was even paler than usual when he mounted 
to the entrance. 

That he had been looked for was evident. The 
door was opened by an elderly butler, walking 
with a slight limp, who welcomed him with af~ 


184 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


fectionate deference and who led the way 
through the huge, cold halls of the house to the 
terraces upon its southern aspect. Here the 
gardens—though their bloom, of course, was 
past—were still rich with autumn coloring and 
surrounded as a setting, by yew hedges, fan¬ 
tastically crenellated. The place had nothing 
of the rich warm loveliness of Wroxeter Old 
House, dyed in the intimate dignity of genera¬ 
tions, exhaling as a perfume that feeling for 
the soil, which is so marvellously preserved by 
the older English country houses. This was a 
different atmosphere, and one which the War 
had somehow contrived to freeze. This huge, 
awkwardly splendid mansion, created hut for 
magnificence, seemed now to possess only the 
cold stateliness of a tomb. It had never been 
a part of life or a product of the countryside 
—rather had it been super-imposed upon them 
—a burden borne—an organism without vital¬ 
ity, and now forever atrophied. 

Surely, a touching frame for the figure toward 
which Waveney was now moving; an old, weak, 
bent man in a wheeled chair, who sat in the sun¬ 
niest corner of the terrace with a rug over his 
knees and gazed listlessly down the long slope 
where shone a glint of distant water. Waveney 
could perceive this figure for some moments be¬ 
fore he reached it: and no man knew better for 
what it had stood in the past. Here was one 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 185 

who had known Dizzy, that eagle in peacock’s 
plumes, and the inscrutable 4 4 Pam”-—one 
who had watched with dignified alarm the rise 
of “Mr. Gr.’’ Here was one whose memory held 
pictures of a society over which the curtain had 
finally descended. Here was one who had seen 
the Beauties and the Dandies and the Emperors 
while they were still strutting about the earth 
. . . who had seen the world of Art rent asun¬ 
der by Turner—and the world of ideas by Dar¬ 
win—who had witnessed the struggle of the 
gods of the nineteenth century and must now 
behold their twilight. 

Once more, that feeling of mistaken purpose, 
that doubt of ambition, crossed the younger 
man’s mind as he advanced toward the wheeled 
chair, bringing with it a taste of bitterness and 
wonder. 

“And is this my desire? This what I strive 
for? To sit in the sunshine, an old, neglected, 
declining man—forgotten by the people I led, 
the party I served? Tragically disappointed— 
as in the son wiped out at Mons—the daughter 
—worse ended still . . . and gazing at the 
chilly bones of all this cumbrous splendour?” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


His hearty, 1 1 Well sir; how glad I am to see you 
looking so well!” showed, it is needless to say, 
no hint of these thoughts. Morton brought him 
a chair, while Beauvray held his hand in his own 
brittle-looking, blue-veined one. A big, white 
borzoi rose, stretching herself, and put her muz¬ 
zle on his knee for a caress, before her master’s 
voice settled her down again. A colony of rooks 
overhead chattered about their business. The 
garden held, now and again, the humming of a 
few late bees. 

Their talk was the talk of Englishmen, slow, 
reflective, often sententious, hiding those things 
each sought from the other under the trivialities 
of sport and gossip. The elder man turned 
toward the younger a glance of tired affection. 
He spoke of the battle with reticent satisfaction; 
of Government with frank disapprobation; and 
of Waveney’s recently withdrawn opportunity 
with due comprehension of all that it implied. 

“They will not send you,” was his comment, 
“because you are neither one of us, nor one of 
them. ’ ’ 

“They are sending nobody at present—for 
good reasons.” 

The other assented, but his eyes were hardly 

186 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 187 

interested. When he spoke again, it was with a 
visible effort and in another tone. 

“Waveney—I wanted a word with you— 
about Claire. You have not, I think, seen Claire 
lately ?” 

“I have never seen Lady Claire since that 
day,” Waveney answered, his face stiffening. 
The old man’s eyes rested on his with a look 
that was almost entreaty. 

“Then you really do not know about Claire— 
recently, I mean?” 

“I know nothing—I know nothing about her.” 

“You do not wish to know—I understand! 

I can never forget what you did—how you saved 
us.” 

“Against my will—you remember?” 

“I have not forgotten.” There was a touch 
of spirit and hauteur in the old man and he 
raised his hand as if to protest. The borzoi had 
risen to lay her slender head across his knee 
and he stroked it as he talked. His voice was 
the even, unmoved voice of his caste, but Wave¬ 
ney could supply all its unused imploring in¬ 
flections. 

“Claire has been so much better these last 
few months. There were the drugs to be con¬ 
quered, but she had not been taking them so 
long as to be a regular addict. I myself thought 
she would never recover—perhaps I hoped * 

it!” 


188 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

Waveney was silent. 

“But she has recovered in large measure. For 
a year she has taken nothing and shows no dis¬ 
position to relapse. She is stronger—almost 
well. She is absorbed in war-work as she can 
be—she gives every moment. That she realizes 
—I feel sure!” 

“That is of course some thing,’ ’ said Waveney, 
but his voice remained cold. 

“But she is troubled—Claire is troubled, just 
because she does realize. She knows that but for 
you she would never have had another chance. 
She clings to life now-so much. Since Winstan- 
ley—poor lad—has gone, she has felt her situa¬ 
tion terribly. She is young still and can atone.” 

“I do not think so—I do not think she can 
atone.” His voice was gentle but terrible in 
its finality and Lord Beauvray winced. 

“Still—you are willing she should try!” 

“Never to the extent of mingling in the world 
again—of going about quite freely among inno¬ 
cent people.” 

“But to have a quiet life,” the elder man 
spoke with a touch of anguish, “taste some 
peace and happiness—be perhaps of some use! 
You would not wish to prevent that!” 

“No, I suppose I would not wish to prevent 
that. ’ 9 

Lord Beauvray went on more quietly: “Well, 
there seems more chance of it these last few 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 189 

months. If only nothing comes out—! That is 
what Claire dreads! That is what she fears 
will come to pull her back. You are sure, Wave- 
ney, that the truth will not come out?” 

Waveney paused before answering; and his 
reply came with full weight of this moment’s 
consideration back of it. 

“I am certain—I am quite certain. Who 
could tell? Lord John?” 

“My brother John? My God no!” 

“Quite so. And you are sure of Morton’s 
fidelity, I take it?” 

The old man made a proud gesture. “Not 
less than of John’s. But it is not that Claire 
is afraid of.” 

“What then? There is only you and I.” 

“You have forgotten the Government agent.” 

“The Government agent?” 

“The woman you sent for—that young woman 
—you remember—the one who finally induced 
her to confess. You said she was employed by 
the Government, but you never told us her 
name. ’ ’ 

Waveney’s hand on his knee clenched and stif¬ 
fened. The blood came into his white face. He 
could not have told why he felt so furiously in¬ 
sulted. 

“Are you sure of her?” repeated Beauvray, 
with increasing anxiety. And Waveney, finding 
his voice: 


190 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“Of her? Absolutely.’’ 

“But a mere detective-” 

“She was no mere detective. I am as sure 
of her as of myself. Anything else would be 
impossible—impossible.’ ’ 

It was so rare to hear the quiet man speak 
like this that Beauvray glanced at him with a 
curiosity in which the other saw danger. He 
took a moment to relight his cigar, and fold his 
hands together over his knee, then went on to 
question his host in a manner half-indifferent— 
half obviously patient, as one who must bear 
with the crotchets of the sick and old. 

“Has she any reason for this alarm? Any 
foundation for it? Has anyone suggested such 
an idea to her? She saw nothing afterwards of 
this—of this lady. She could hardly even recog¬ 
nize her.” 

‘‘ Oh, she remembers her very well. Her 
power—her ability—the way she conquered my 
poor Claire—how could she ever forget it? She 
remembers it with dread. The woman’s face 
comes up at night. And then. . . 

‘‘ And then . . . ? ” 

“You see, Claire has become a great spir¬ 
itualist. It has been the means of saving her, 
she thinks.” The old voice grew half hesitat¬ 
ing, half-apologetic, but the listener made no 
sign. “I don’t know what you feel about all 
these revelations? but there must be something 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 191 

in ’em—eh? Lodge, yon know—and Conan Doyle 
and those people all think there’s something 
in it, don’t they?” 

“They say so. And so Lady Claire has taken 
to mediums? She is quite comforted by them?” 

“Oh quite! The whole world has been changed 
for her by it—by one particular medium, I 
should say—Madame Charles, I mean.” 

Waveney made a mental note of the name: his 
manner was quietly sympathetic and showed no 
trace of the thin current of uneasiness that be¬ 
gan to run through his mind while the older 
man, encouraged by his attitude, was speaking. 

“Yes, yes, Mme. Charles has brought hope to 
poor Claire. . . . She has had communications 
from Winstanley and it seems he has wholly 
forgiven her. . . . Oh! that has meant every- 
thing to Claire . . . she feels an elevation, an 
encouragement to live that she never felt 
before. ... I saw it in her poor tortured face 
—it was at peace. . . . But at their last seance 
something happened that frightened her dread¬ 
fully.” 

“Yes?” 

The narrator’s voice had paused, faded out, 
and he sunk weakly back for an instant into the 
shadow of this tragedy of the past. Delicately, 
almost tenderly, Waveney caught him back, just 
as the sorrow was clouding his eyes and his 
mouth hung open, forgetting to go on. 


192 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

“Where was I? . . . yes, that last seance— 
oh yes, it frightened her. . . . She went there 
that day with Lanra Theydon—she sees a good 
deal of Lanra these days and they went toge¬ 
ther. Lanra heard Mme. Charles herself and 
she certainly told them both that Claire’s fu¬ 
ture was menaced by a dark woman. And who 
could this dark woman be? Laura Theydon 
thinks it was meant for her , not Claire—the 
spirits were confused that day and Laura thinks 
she knows who it is.” 

4 ‘ Does Miss Theydon know-?” 

“Oh no, no of course not!” The denial was 
so obviously sincere before the sternness of that 
enquiry, that Waveney relaxed again. “Laura 
knows nothing—nothing! But Claire knows— 
and it must be this woman—Claire remembers 
that she was dark and good-looking. Do you 
think the spirits are warning Claire?” 

“My dear fellow . . . ! the other began and 
then paused. To take up the matter with sin¬ 
cerity was so difficult, particularly as the con¬ 
junction of Laura Theydon and Claire Winstan- 
ley sent a little icy fear all through his blood. 
The pause quieted this chilly nervousness, but 
when he spoke again, it was deliberately, imper¬ 
sonally—in his best manner. He gave Beauvray 
as unconcernedly as possible his opinion about 
mediums in general—Mme. Charles in particu¬ 
lar. He showed plainly that the incident in it- 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 193 

self had not served to rehabilitate Lady Claire 
in his good opinion, and her means of obtain¬ 
ing hope and strength to go on living after so 
deadly a fiasco were not those he would have 
chosen. He said all this so coldly aloof and so 
gently that an invalid could not be jarred nor a 
father offended. But the great blow which 
Claire Winstanley had dealt had been so com¬ 
plete to pride and so ruinous to the future—of 
not only her father but his brother, who had 
had to resign his portfolio, and to the entire 
family—that it had dulled Beauvray’s capacity 
for suffering and understanding. He had been 
a partial invalid before, he was a confirmed in¬ 
valid now. He had descended into hell; and he 
could suffer no further. Even his anxiety and 
his perceptions were no longer keen. He merely 
wanted to be reassured and Waveney gave him 
this reassurance in the most positive manner. 

“I do not care for all the witches in Endor 
my self,’ ’ he said, “and this jargon of a dark 

lady has and can have no reference to-” He 

checked iat the name as Beauvray pushed away 
the dog’s head from his knee to say: 

“But Laura heard it—there was no deception! 
A slender dark woman was named.” 

“You say Miss Theydon thought this malign 
influence was intended to apply to something 

in her own life-” 

“Well!” 




194 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“Well, perhaps she was right—perhaps she 
was right! Who knows? There are plenty of 
dark ladies about, you know—I’ve been staying 
at Wroxeter myself with one—and Miss They- 
don was there and Miss Theydon didn’t like her 
very well—if I am any judge of a lady’s mind. 
. . . When did this happen?” 

“A few days ago. Claire told me just before 
I had Morton telephone you.” 

“Quite so. I understand. I think Mme. 
Charles is probably a clever student of human 
nature. Certainly, she must have talked with 
many women before this.” 

“Are you sure this woman will keep faith?” 

“As of myself.” 

“But why are you so sure?” Beauvray per¬ 
sisted a little petulantly. “She was never paid 
anything-” 

“Perhaps for that reason. Anyhow I am 
sure. ’ ’ 

“Waveney—tell me the woman’s name! Tell 
me who it is!” 

“I refused two years ago, my dear fellow. I 
am more than ever convinced that I was wise.” 

“But can I take the responsibility to assure 
Claire that she has nothing to fear—from this 
unknown enemy!” 

Lord Waveney had rarely been obliged to exert 
self-control so often as this afternoon and had 
never in his life been more conscious of anger. 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 195 

The pupils of the eyes which he turned upon the 
elder were so big and dark that they were start¬ 
ling and Beauvray twisted in his chair under 
the low words: 

“You do not need to take any responsibility. 

I take the responsibility! I take it here and now 
in my solemn statement . . . Lady Claire 

has no enemy—need fear no spy. You may as¬ 
sure her of it—on my honour.’* 

“Quite so—quite so—of course!” Beauvray 
could only murmur deprecatingly in face of this 
most unwonted vehemence, but the next instant 
doubt again showed itself: 

“The point is,” he added, “I cannot myself 
see how you come to be so absolutely sure of 
any Government employee. I could never have 
been so in the days I held office.” 

“Perhaps not. Let it rest that I am. And 

now I must go.” 

He had intended to stay much longer but sud¬ 
denly felt that to be impossible—he must hurry 
away. The other clung to his hand, repeating 
rather wistfully: 

“So soon? Must you go so soon? But Claire 
is here—I was just going to send for her— 
Won’t you wait, my dear boy, to see Claire?” 

“Thank you, no. I must get back to town at 
once,” the other insisted, then softened his re¬ 
fusal by adding in his serene voice, “After all 
—I am so very glad for a great deal you have 


196 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


told me. My dear fellow, that she is—is so 
far recovered and able to be with you, means 
very much, doesn’t it? It has turned out better, 
at least, than we feared.” 

The elder man’s eyes rested on his face with 
a sudden, penetrating and steady gleam which 
sought for the truth, found it, and in turn re¬ 
vealed his own perception of it. A whole tragedy 
of realization lay in that gaze. Then his with¬ 
ered eyelids fell over it. The cloud had not 
lifted from his face and he let his hand drop 
listlessly back on the dog’s head as his friend 
bade him good-bye and turned away. 

As Waveney paused at the corner of the ter¬ 
race to make a final gesture of farewell, he saw 
a woman approaching from the house—a mea¬ 
gre, wasted figure, whose half-servile, half-arro¬ 
gant carriage had a touch of abnormality some¬ 
where—and under his breath he made a sound 
of loathing. 

The car was waiting at the entrance and he 
hurried to reach it. As it spun out of the avenue 
and between the great gates, Waveney found 
that he was wiping his forehead with his hand¬ 
kerchief. 


CHAPTER XIX 


Miss Rendall was attached to an office in Vic¬ 
toria Street, whose windows opened on a roar¬ 
ing stream of traffic and a strip of sky pierced 
by the towers of the Abbey. In moments of de¬ 
pression, when she perhaps donbted the value of 
all that output of feminine energy which the 
office represented, Mildred would gaze upon 
those significant lopped spires, which she told 
herself she was helping to defend. Their endur¬ 
ing and glorious presence renewed faith in one’s 
heritage, shared with the English and born of 
them. Surely, her heart was right when it cried 
that but for George and herself and thousands 
like them, the Abbey towers might have been as 
empty as those of Rheims. 

Mildred had said good-bye to George, said it 
with admirable stiffness and in the proper 
manner. Ever since that motor-visit whither his 
sister’s sore heart had followed him, George had 
preserved a certain unusual reticence. True, he 
had answered his sister’s eager questions—yes, 
he’d seen Mrs. Ashburnham—had a long talk 
with her. Yes: the house had been one of those 
really fine old ones that Mildred would love, with 


198 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


oak beams, and gardens and hedges and pools 
and things. Cordial? Indeed yes—everybody 
had been awfully nice, had given him tea and 
talk . . . they were the real sort. The man 
they’d seen at the station was Lord Wroxeter 
himself—a perfect gentleman every inch of him 
and jolly and kind as possible. Of Waveney, 
George said nothing. His sister would have 
liked details, but then she always liked more de¬ 
tails than he was prone to give. George had 
been in the past no more expansive to her than 
brothers are to sisters generally, when they are 
fond of them—but Mildred had been closer to 
him during their exile and this closing of a door 
between them made her heart heavier when the 
parting came. 

Her mind being so full of George, Mildred had 
found it hard to wait for the day when Mrs. 
Ashburnham had stated that she would be back 
in town. This date had not been definitely given, 
and thus Miss Kendall was furnished with the 
excuse she needed for calling at the flat to en¬ 
quire. Her loneliness, too, pressed upon her 
and heightened her memory of her new acquain¬ 
tance’s fascination. 

On a pleasant October afternoon she took the 
bus, getting out at Mount Street, as Mrs. Ash¬ 
burnham had advised. The Park was full of 
people and the Row of riders. The sky had its 
sinister flowering of golden balloon-like bubbles 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 199 

and shining silver aeroplanes. Mildred felt 
youthfully excited as she walked along Mount 
Street—looking carefully for the garden-gate to 
which she had been directed. She told herself 
she was merely going to enquire, hut in her 
heart, fresh and full of romance, she hoped for 
admission. 

Dora welcomed this pleasant young lady with¬ 
out a qualm. Dora had, for some time past been 
expecting orders from her mistress to cover this 
contingency, having inferred from previous ex¬ 
perience, that when the same gentleman called 
day after day and he “my lord”— one’s mis¬ 
tress was not apt to be at home to other visitors. 
But so far such instructions had not been given. 

Mildred heard voices beyond and was ushered 
at once upon a scene of work and a thin trace of 
tobacco-smoke. A man sat in a big chair, pull¬ 
ing over some papers which lay on his knee, in 
the most intimate and comfortable way in the 
world. There were more papers placed on the 
table which stood before Mrs. Ashburnham, who 
jumped up and warmly greeted her visitor. Shy¬ 
ness was not Mildred’s characteristic, but her 
feelings on this occasion were mixed enough to 
produce awkwardness. Joy and excitement at 
seeing her friend; awe at the stranger she found 
there and who was an exalted personage in Mil¬ 
dred’s naive view; jealousy of his being there in 
such intimacy; doubt that she was welcome at 


200 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


the moment—all these feelings lent stiffness to 
her tongue and trouble to her eyes. 

Mrs. Ashbumham herself did not seem quite 
at her ease, but she soon regained it, and Wave- 
ney was not a man in whose society one could 
remain long constrained. He was so kindly cor¬ 
dial to the uniform; accepted the interruption 
so pleasantly and joined so gaily in the talk that 
the cloud soon vanished. There was nothing to 
indicate his disappointment when he gathered up 
his papers and—after a proper interval—took 
his leave, his thoughts occupied in trying to de¬ 
fine the special quality which made Mrs. Ash¬ 
bumham so very different from the rest of her 
compatriots. 

Although his manner had been perfect, yet 
Mildred was troubled by his departure, which 
she showed in face and voice when the door 
closed behind them. 

“I fear I’ve driven your friend off—I’m so 
sorry. ’ ’ 

“You needn’t be,” replied Mrs. Ashbumham 
lightly; then seeing in the girl’s embarrassment 
a touch of exaggerated sensitiveness, she warm¬ 
ly added: “My dear child—don’t give it an¬ 
other thought! Men always have plenty of 
chances—Waveney can bring his work another 
day. And you and I need a talk—don’t we? 
Have you been lonely?” 

“Awfully!” said poor Mildred, very sorry 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 201 

for herself and grateful for the sympathy which 
caused the other to give her hand a warm 
squeeze, while she said: 

“Of course—you poor dear! And did you 
know I’ve had a letter from your brother? Oh, 
it is only about that stupid business of mine 
but it was so good of him . . . ! I didn’t know 
people could be so considerate.” 

“George is always considerate,” Mildred said. 

“So I see.” There was nothing intimate or 
personal in the letter, and this fact, coupled with 
her hostess’s sympathetic manner, unlatched Mil¬ 
dred’s heart. She fixed her eyes on her admired 
friend—poured out her affairs and her loneli¬ 
ness and after a while she remembered to ask: 

“Then you are going home?” 

“I can’t answer,” smiled Mrs. Ashburnham, 
and added. “Moreover, I don’t know if it is 
going home—for me.” 

“Things are going so splendidly in France,” 
Mildred ventured “that one has more right to 
think of one’s own affairs—” 

“Of course—” said the other and turned the 
talk entirely to the prospects of peace. Hope and 
cheer, seemed to Mildred, to radiate from her 
presence . . . through that restful room, so 
delicately austere that one could relax in it with¬ 
out feeling too luxurious. 

They talked about everything: Mildred greedy 
of sympathy, and the other glad to see her ex- 



202 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


pression—which had been rather worn, poor 
child! light np again. The hour sped past, and 
when Miss Rendall rose, apologetic for the 
length of her stay, Sidney sent her away happy 
with an invitation to dinner in the following 
week. 

An intimate friendship between these two 
young women was inevitable and no longer to 
be delayed. Mildred’s letters to George be¬ 
came filled with it . . . her romantic sense 
being satisfied to the full by her friend’s per¬ 
sonality and situation. Mrs. Ashburham had 
seen many things and known many people . . . 
who, with their quaintly defined characteristics, 
presented to Mildred, through Sidney’s vivid 
mimicry, a series of individual studies of which 
she could never tire and by means of which this 
strange Island was illuminated. 

Sidney, on her part, found it amusing to re¬ 
read her English surroundings through Mil¬ 
dred’s eyes: to hear her squeal of delight that 
anyone should really live at “Uckfield House, 
Cuckfield, Bucks,” or at some startling revela¬ 
tion of English candour. Also it was comforting 
to have Mildred like the kind of clothes she her¬ 
self liked; and show the same sturdy self-suf¬ 
ficiency in which Sidney too had been bred. It 
was good to know that one gave pleasure, and 
a relief to turn to this friendship when one 
wearied of the problems raised by another 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 203 

friendship—one which had grown of late almost 
alarmingly absorbing. 

With an infallible instinct Sidney had been 
careful to allow these two intimates to meet as 
little as possible. A nice sense of self-preserva¬ 
tion kept her from blundering, and her training 
had given her a mastery of such situations. 
People did not meet unless she wished them to 
meet—although it took a certain careful hand¬ 
ling. If Mildred felt there was “a man in the 
background,” yet her previous experience did 
not lead her to suppose that he was daily taking 
tea at the flat where she herself was definitely 
expected only in the evenings. She shared that 
mild contempt with which her brother would 
have regarded any man habitually idle enough 
to take regular afternoon tea—yet she had be¬ 
gun to observe in England that the habit did 
not always imply idleness. They couldn’t all be 
lazy! Lord Wroxeter—(from Sidney’s ac¬ 
count, for Mildred never met him) Lord Wroxe¬ 
ter might be, but Waveney was one of the busi¬ 
est men in England. Mildred’s feeling had be¬ 
gun to be modified by a sense that the interde¬ 
pendence of the sexes was developed on some¬ 
what different lines than those she was accus¬ 
tomed to see at home, and also by a touch of 
envy at the social structure which made such 
leisurely intercourse possible. Evidently they 


204 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


all did it; and therefore Mildred, though jealous 
for George (and sometimes jealous even of 
George)—Mildred did not lay undue emphasis 
on Lord Waveney’s frequent visits. She was 
not aware, of course, how regular these had 
lately grown to be. 


CHAPTER XX 


There were occasions, however, on which the 
two were bound to meet and such a meeting took 
place on one of those foggy afternoons which 
marked the passing of October. Waveney had 
come a little later, Mildred decidedly earlier 
than was expected: tea must be drunk and cigar¬ 
ettes lighted: they must all at least appear to 
enjoy it. Waveney jested in friendly-wise and 
Sidney, behind the tea-table, told herself it must 
be the fog which made one feel so oddly nervous. 

“Oh, Sidney, by the way,” Mildred suddenly 
asked, “you know a Miss Theydon—don’t you?” 

The name was like a little cold wind blowing 
in upon that warm and sheltered place. 

“Yes—I’ve met Miss Theydon,” was the in¬ 
stant answer: “why?” 

“She came in to the Embassy yesterday af¬ 
ternoon, when all of us were there together. I 
told you, I think, that our unit had been invited 
to meet some English ladies. . . . They were 
lovely to us. . . . This one was a tall, blonde, 
woman . . . very handsome . . . jade ear¬ 
rings ? ’ ’ 

“I know,” Sidney replied, hastily. 

“She talked to me a lot. . . . She asked me 

205 


206 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


if I knew anyone in London and I said you. . . 
Right away, she said oh yes! that she knew you 
very well.” 

“Now that’s very interesting,” was Sidney’s 
comment, her smile being almost imperceptible. 

“Then, as I was leaving, you know, she came 
up again and asked for your address. . . . She 
said she wanted to call on you very soon and 
bring a friend who wished to meet you. She 
made rather a point of it, so of course I gave 
it her. She was really awfully cordial and nice.” 

“I am sure she was . . . but I wonder who 
the friend could have been ... I wonder?” 
mused Mrs. Ashburnham. 

Mildred could offer no solution but guessed 
it was Somebody by the way Miss Theydon had 
spoken . . . and went on to give her opinion of 
the arrangements at the Embassy. 

Waveney had been siting in silence, to listen 
as his wont was, in smiling appreciation, but by 
the time Mildred had finished her story of this 
little encounter, his smile had given way to a 
look of preoccupation. A few minutes later, 
he interrupted her description of the unit’s re¬ 
ception at the Embassy by rising and asking 
permission of his hostess to use her telephone. 
He was absent but a short time, and when he 
returned the air of preoccupation had quite van¬ 
ished, his brow was clear, and he began to talk 
with Mildred and jest with her in a manner 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 207 

light-hearted enough, so that the girUs face 
lit up with amusement and sympathy. 

But the afternoon was destined to interrup¬ 
tion, for the telephone bell began again its im¬ 
perative clamor, and Mildred, rather to her sur¬ 
prise, was the next person summoned. She 
came running back wearing an expression of dis¬ 
appointment and uneasiness. The message was 
from her hotel, someone was waiting for her 
there on a matter of importance: it was all too 
tiresome, but she must go at once—she only 
hoped it had nothing to do with George . . . ! 

Sidney hoped so too, and was a little troubled 
for her, and both of them avowed themselves 
puzzled—notwithstanding Waveney’s reassur¬ 
ances—by the vagueness of the summons. They 
kissed and parted . . . Mildred hastened from 
the apartment and Mrs. Ashburnham turned 
back to her drawing-room looking not a little 
worried for her friend. 

“It's very odd!” she declared. “I only hope 
it is not bad news.” 

“It is nothing,” Waveney assured her. 

“Oh, I fear you are wrong—it sounds very 
strange to me, their not giving any reason and 
so on . . .1 feel perhaps I ought to go over 
there.” 

“It is nothing at all,” he repeated, and added 
without change of inflection—“I know, because 
1 sent it.” 


208 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

“You—f ” she looked at him bereft of speech. 

“Yes . . . the person who spoke to her was 
Parker . . . and I had instructed him to do so 
just a minute before. All he did was to give 
her a summons to her hotel. When she gets 
there she will find that there has been a mis¬ 
take. He will arrange it and she will not be 
worried. Have you forgiven me!” 

“Hardly. But why-!” The action was one 

so wholly outside of her knowledge of him that 
Sidney was still half stupefied by it, nor was 
her amazement lessened by his complete steadi¬ 
ness of manner. 

“I had a reason which justifies me, I assure 
you—I simply had to speak to you alone and 
knew no quicker way. I was afraid to wait till 
she went, as that might have been too late and 
I have a dinner engagement. That’s all. I 
am not so unscrupulous as I seem.” 

He leaned over his chair toward her and im¬ 
pelled her gaze to meet his own. 

“I am not so unscrupulous as I seem,” he 
repeated, “believe me—however much I might 
want to see you alone—however much I might 
want to see you alone-” 

For the first time his repetitions did not arise 
from emphasis but from embarrassment. Her 
eyes had dropped and her face had grown paler. 
He hurried on: 

“I would not have played a trick on your lit- 





THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 209 

tie friend to secure that—that privilege. No: 
there was another, a much more important 
reason/’ 

The recovered quiet of his voice which just 
before had vibrated suddenly with a feeling to 
which she herself vibrated—this gave her cour¬ 
age and she was able to look up. The emotion 
had passed through the room like a great chord 
of music and was now* stilled. 

“It must be very important for you to do such 
a thing to poor little Mildred,’’ she said grave¬ 
ly. “I am entirely astonished ... I couldn’t 
believe that you would make use of such means 
... I am much disappointed.” 

With a gesture, he seemed to brush aside the 
incident as of nothing important, rather as if 
there was no such person as Mildred Rendall in 
the world. His face and attitude of concentra¬ 
tion recalled the earlier days of their acquain¬ 
tance so that her mind, groping in its bewilder¬ 
ment ,for some clue to his unusual conduct, be¬ 
gan dimly to lay hold on it, and to pre-figure 
the subject on which he was about to speak. 

“What she said about Miss Theydon-” 

“About Miss Theydon?” she still stupidly 
repeated. 

His voice showed impatience. “Yes—yes . . . 
she had met Laura Theydon . . . they talked 
of you . . . Miss Theydon remarked, apparent¬ 
ly that she was coming to see you.” 



210 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


4 ‘But surely, that would not be so -” 

“Wait a moment . . . you remember she 
talked of bringing a friend also to call on you 
. . .Do you know who it is—this friend? Why 
she is bringing her? Why she will surely bring 
her?” 

“You are making me nervous—your manner 
is so-” 

“It is Claire Winstanley.” 

Sidney seemed to gather herself up in her 
chair and sat erect; her face though grave, was 
not startled or shaken. Waveney, his grimace 
of disgust controlled, stood before her, while 
he narrated his visit to Beddingfield and his con¬ 
versation with Lord Beauvray. The topic was 
fraught with memories for them both, memories 
which brought them more than once to the very 
verge of agitation, while it was being broached; 
but Mrs. Ashburnham had summoned her pride 
to her assistance. Surely, if he had forgotten— 
if he could speak calmly of that moment of reve¬ 
lation —she could also! She was not going to be 
the one to re-charge the subject with emotion. 

“I felt that you must know,” Adrian con¬ 
cluded, “so you may tell Dora to deny you 
when they come. It is quite evident that this 
woman’s unbalanced mind is simply seeking 
about for fresh cause of excitement. She must 
not find it here.” 

“But I do not yet understand,” Sidney said, 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 211 

u I thought that she was locked up ... I 
thought that it was to be the absolute under¬ 
standing ! ’ ’ 

“She was locked up—in a sanatorium for 
eighteen months/* he answered a trifle shortly. 
“Even to Scotland Yard it became plain she was 
unbalanced. . . . They could not put a mor- 
phinomane in the Tower. ... So then when 
she got better—poor old Beauvray wanted her 
at home—” he shrugged, “what could one do 
after all?” 

“England is certainly run by the sentimen¬ 
talist and the snob!” Mrs. Ashburnham com¬ 
mented vigorously; and Adrian made no answer. 
Once more he had the sense of her independence 
of judgment, the feeling that she had escaped 
his influence and did not always think as he 
wished her to think. Did it come from these 
Kendalls? He studied her face a moment and 
then responded: 

“You have a way—you have a way of putting 

us in the wrong that is very upsetting. 

And you seem always to be putting me in the 
wrong ! 9 9 

She remained silent: her face as inscrutable as 
his own could have been. Her heart cried out 
. . . “Let him try! This time he has met his 
match. ’ 9 

“But the point is . . . if Lady Claire is like- 




212 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


ly to recognize yon, she must not have the 
chance.” 

“But why, Lord Waveney?” 

“Why, why! You ask why?” 

His serenity was gone and he poured out his 
Reeling as if he had never been calm in his life. 
“Good God! Have you forgotten? I took the 
whole responsilibity to the Government. I told 
Easterly you were absolutely the only woman I 
knew who had the integrity and intelligence for 
such a task. You had to make that screaming, 
hysterical creature confess her black treason and 

you did it superbly.Do you think I 

don’t know how you did it? . . . I—I beg your 
pardon if I am vehement,” he caught himself 
back with an effort and spoke more quietly. 
“Now the whole matter must be buried and for¬ 
gotten.” 

“Certainly it’s strange that the idea of me 
should ever occur to their minds! There has 
been no reason and Miss Theydon knows 
nothing.” 

“You do not quite understand. The sooth¬ 
sayer was vague after the manner of her kind. 
Two ladies were present and she says that a 
dark lady threatens the future of one of them. 
She doesn’t say which one and all Miss They¬ 
don wants is to have her friend meet you and 
see if she believes you are meant. It is all so 
preposterous -” 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 213 

“But why should I threaten Miss Theydon’s 
future f” Sidney spoke smoothly and her eyes 
met his and held. For the life of him Adrian 
could not give the answer to this question and 
the quivering pride of her face made him sud¬ 
denly conscious that he was afraid of her, ter¬ 
ribly afraid of her. Rarely had he found him¬ 
self so much at a loss: he could only mum¬ 
ble something about women being generally 
suspicious. . . . She saw that her supremacy 
just here, and that his own realization of in¬ 
adequacy were punishment enough . . . there¬ 
upon she flung the whole question contemptu¬ 
ously into a corner by the remark: 

“Strange, I should rise again above the hori¬ 
zon of that woman’s life.” 

“I do not think so. Truth is like that. It 
has an attractive as well as propulsive power. 
We stand for what we are. You are the per¬ 
son and therefore Lady Claire is, all ignorantly, 
occupied with you. But we must not lose time 
. . . they may turn up any day. ... Will 
you call in Dora and tell her!” 

She made no movement toward the bell, but 
sat passive, her slender hand laid palm out¬ 
ward to cover her eyes. He leaned forward in 
his chair, openly concentrated upon, intensely 
watching her. She knew that, dared she look, 
she would see that the pupils of his eyes were 


214 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


big and black as they had been when—so she 
did not look. 

Adrian, on his part, was conscious only that 
her yielding in this matter was of vital im¬ 
portance, that she had never seemed so ex¬ 
quisite, so frail, so much to be protected ... I 
Her answer when it came was reflective. 

“I am considering. After all, perhaps I had 
better let her come—perhaps the truth is best. 
Do you see what I mean? You say she fears 
me now, because she thinks I am some paid de¬ 
tective who may blackmail her. Well, she can¬ 
not go on thinking that after we meet. She 
will be reassured and her fears quieted. If I 
talk to her-” 

“You must not talk to her—I cannot have you 
talk to that woman! It is unthinkable. 97 He 
spoke with a roughness altogether unlike his 
usual persuasive manner. He was irritated be¬ 
yond measure—he wanted to shake her. It 
seemed to him that her determination to leave 
him out of the matter was wanton—he could 
not bear it. 

“I tell you, you must never meet her—I feel— 
I feel hot when I think of it. . . . She is a 
criminal lunatic—she is not to come near you. 
Do you hear? I shall call Dora and tell her 
myself.” 

“You will give orders in my house?” Sidney 
said, looking steadily at him, and her gaze 




the house ON SMITH SQUARE 215 

seemed to help him to put forward his feeling 
more in a form of reason. 

You do not seem—or will not seem to un¬ 
derstand. You have had no experience of peo¬ 
ple like that, scoundrelly people. . . . This 
woman is not fit for you . . . she is bad, down¬ 
right bad and she is probably not sane. If she 
recognizes you, it will be to vent her spite . 
she will connect our names in the vilest way all 
over London! Y ou will be a Government agent, 
whom I—for God’s sake, do not let us stay in 
this miasma any longer!” 

Though his vehemence seemed almost un¬ 
strung, yet his earnestness convinced her. She 
bowed her head, whereupon Waveney’s hand 
was already on the bell. After Dora had re¬ 
ceived very positive instructions from her mis¬ 
tress, and, looking somewhat puzzled, left the 
room again, Sidney turned to him with a smile 
that lightened the tension. 

“Are you satisfied!” 

He nodded, half-humorous, half-apologetic, 
and his face relaxed, only to be frozen the next 
instant with a fresh attention. The bell rang. 

He looked at Mrs. Ashburnham, she sat very 
still. In that silence both could hear Dora’s 
step at the door of the flat, and the voice, or 
was it voices, ladies’ voices! that came in when 
it was opened. They heard the enquiry, it had 
a peremptory note; and Dora’s low-voiced 


216 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

and deferential denial. Leaning forward, alert, 
protective, Waveney seemed hardly to breathe. 
Then the door closed once more. Dora brought 
in the cards and with the reading of the 
names the tension passed; Lord Waveney 
slowly rose, looked for a match on the man¬ 
telpiece, and having found it turned once more 
toward his companion. 4 ‘I am satisfied,” he 
said, very quietly, “and now I must run away 
and dress and talk to stupid people—or no, 
they are not so stupid as I am, but I am 
tired! And you,—you are the most obstinate 
woman! ’ ’ 

She laughed, as they moved toward the door 
together. On its threshold, he paused to look 
back. 

“I love this room,” he said under his breath; 
then without more words, he took his departure. 


CHAPTER XXI 


Lord John Filmer had been a familiar figure in 
English political life for the quarter century 
preceding the War. He had retained his port¬ 
folio through 1914 and 1915—no party desiring 
to lose his services, singularly ill-defined though 
these often were. It had been said that he 
formed the last link with the Victorian era and 
that this link was one which neither of the War 
Premiers desired to break. Certainly, it had 
not been broken by Government. Lord John 
had resigned, on the discovery by Scotland Yard 
that his niece, the Lady Claire Winstanley, was 
involved in a more than questionable black¬ 
mailing scandal which had treason as its object, 
and which had seemed the blossoming of her 
unsavory career. During the short life of this 
young woman, adultery and divorce had led by 
easy descent to more dangerous byways, and 
the political ruin of her family was not the 
least tragic of its results. 

Her father had been out of office since the 

Liberals came into power, and it was impossible, 

on the face of it, for her uncle to remain. 

Whitehall retains, however, the full share of that 

common sense which is the ideal of the English- 

217 


218 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

man and was therefore not disposed to connect, 
too seriously, the thought of treason with the 
Filmers. Lady Claire was Lady Claire—every 
great family had produced and suffered from 
such undesirable members. Lord John’s col¬ 
leagues, then, were not slow in their assurances 
that only the present super-heated state of 
public opinion caused them to accept his resig¬ 
nation; and he had the consolation, if such it 
were, of finding himself still included in those 
more vital consultations, by which a few honest, 
if not very brilliant men, strove and restrove 
to grasp the reins which War and the Labour 
Party, running at full gallop, had jerked out 
of their hands. It was especially during these 
conferences, that Wavenev’s observation “The 
English Government has ceased to function,” 
struck home with greater force. 

Lord John’s chief characteristic was his color¬ 
lessness. He was a neutral carpeting which 
suited any political complexion; while yet re¬ 
taining its valuable quality of hard wear. He 
had judgment; kept regular hours; said very 
little but listened a great deal. He was never, 
like Wroxeter, disconcertingly humourous or 
clever; his manner had a hawklike directness 
when it swooped upon the subject. He believed 
himself to be the most democratic of men, but 
the immobility of his countenance, the unrespon¬ 
sive steadiness of his eye and the icy reserve in 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 219 

which he enwrapped his existence, always man¬ 
aged to rouse the demagogic elements in Parlia¬ 
ment against him. In these historic days, the 
aristocrat who wished to maintain his influence 
did so by feigning dependence on the mob and 
maintaining an effusive affability of demeanour 
—by which they were sometimes—though not 
always—deceived. Lord John had been bred in 
another school and could not learn the newer 
manner. His complete worldly independence 
was often felt as an offence and Labour had 
been heard to grumble that a man who owed 
them so little should have a place in Parliament. 
It was not the least of Lord John’s troubles, 
that, in 1918, this attitude began perceptibly to 
be replaced by one of pity and sympathy. He 
wanted no sympathy from Labour, nor from 
Ulster, nor from Sinn Fein. 

The Filmers had been friends and supporters 
of Waveney from the beginning. Although he 
was a Liberal, yet whatever could be done to 
help him on his way, they did; and that was 
much. Both brothers liked him and thought 
him a “wonderful fella,” That he should come 
to their rescue in a prompt and efficient man¬ 
ner on the only occasion when they ever needed 
it, seemed therefore entirely natural. It could 
not make the tie closer than it was already, but 
it transformed this tie into something more 
personal and that was not wholly to Waveney’s 


220 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

advantage. Few house-parties in the old days 
when Beddingfield was in its glory, had taken 
place without him, and in those times such 
sponsorship was important. Lord John had 
openly regretted Adrian’s marriage and had as 
openly expressed satisfaction—with his own 
see-saw inflection—at the removal of the im¬ 
pediment. There was no doubt that, in his 
mind, he expected Adrian to form a second tie 
within the confines of their own particular circle. 
Once safely allied to a family like their own, 
or the Theydons, Waveney’s politics would not 
matter; but what mattered was that another 
stone would be safely laid in the dyke which 
their order was struggling to build against the 
tide of Socialists and Colonials and Americans 
which threatened to force them into picturesque 
uselessness. 

Lord John was unmarried. He lived at Queen 
Anne’s Gate with a sister whose passionate de¬ 
votion to the canine race had caused her to 
be regarded as the chief deity in the English 
dog’s heaven. It was the Lady Priscilla Filmer 
who had addressed those impassioned appeals 
to the public on the subject of rations for dogs 
and the issuance of a special milk allowance 
for bitches in whelp. It was the Lady Priscilla 
who was responsible for the momentous decision 
that the nose of a Pekingese need not be black, 
provided it be of proper conformation. It was 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 221 

the Lady Priscilla whose wolfhound knocked 
down a frail, little, great Duke in Piccadilly, 
and Lady Priscilla who refused to have the 
culprit shot. This lady was far too much con¬ 
cerned with dogs to be especially interested in 
men; and far oftener to be found in Cabinet 
consultations with the Doggy-man on Stafford 
Street, than in reading the War news—but she 
did her duty, was a Patroness of the Blue Cross, 
and had established at her own expense a hos¬ 
pital for the care of dogs used as field-mes¬ 
sengers. 

The visit to Beddingfield and the talk there 
with Beauvray made an uneasy impression upon 
Waveney’s mind, heightened by the nervous 
strain which had lately begun to tell upon 
his health. He was greatly driven by work and 
possessed by a curious apprehensiveness and an 
inability to envisage his own situation or to 
determine the future, due partly to the pressure 
of world events, now moving with huge strides 
to a culmination, and partly to his personal un¬ 
certainty and anxiety. This personal care preyed 
upon him the most, and thus he was led to 
open the subject with Lord John, to whom he 
felt he could express himself more frankly con¬ 
cerning Lady Claire’s inconvenient curiosity 
than he had felt able to do to her father. 

The two men had encountered in Bird Cage 
Walk on their way through the Parks, a stroll 


222 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

which easily extended itself to the limits of 
Kensington Gardens. Lord John, who had never 
relaxed during the present informal phase one 
inch of his traditional phylacteries, moved rap¬ 
idly along, his tall hat gleaming, while he 
listened to what Waveney had to tell him about 
Lady Claire Winstanley. This, of course, was 
only just so much and in just such an order; 
to suggest the personal aspect of the matter 
and its bearing on any one else’s happiness, was 
the last thing Adrian wished to do. 

“Poisonous woman, m’ niece Claire,” was 
Lord John’s comment: and Adrien felt relieved, 
knowing that the weight of his powerful in¬ 
fluence would he thrown against any attempt 
the lady might make at social resuscitation. “If 
she bothers you, m’dear chap, officially or other¬ 
wise, you’ve my permission to get her locked 
up. Beauvray can talk as he pleases. She 
had no right to make friends with Laura They- 
don or any other decent Englishwoman. It 
simply isn’t done, and he ought to know it 
without my tellin’ him. I’m sorry it’s you she’s 
interfering with at present-” 

“It is natural that her dislike of me should 
be so strong . . . particularly as I tried as a 
friend, to give her a word of caution after the 
divorce, but she was bent on self-destruction.” 

“Beauvray thought—” said Lord John, with 
his perfect frankness— “that we might have 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 223 

prevented all this by helping her to get back— 
after that chap was dead and all. He thinks 
that the women’s cold-shouldering Claire got 
her desperate and drove her to that crew.” 

“Oh, but she couldn’t,” said Adrian simply 
and Lord John’s eye glanced at his companion’s 
abstract expression. Lord Beauvray—as Lord 
John knew very well—had expected more effort 
to assist Lady Claire personally from Waveney 
than from himself. Was it because he thought 
the former had less right to fastidiousness? 
Perhaps. At all events, aid had not then been 
forthcoming, and the above words showed dis¬ 
taste so plainly, that even Lord John felt a jar. 
After all, lots of women had come a cropper like 
Claire ... it was only this later development 
that made one’s attitude so final. 

“Laura, now, has been good to her—nice 
woman Laura Theydon,” he proceeded, “very 
good people, the Theydons.” 

“Very dull people,” said Waveney, who was 
certainly indiscreet that afternoon. “I often 
wonder what will become in future of families 
like that—too inflexible to change—quite useless 
for the future. They annoy me.” 

His calm assumption of judgment rather in¬ 
creased Lord John’s surprise, although he had 
often welcomed it on other subjects. Could it 
be true, what one had heard lately—that Wave¬ 
ney had been going a lot with Americans? 



224 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

That speech sounded like it. If so—perhaps 
there was a reason. 

“I wanted to ask you about the Ambassador¬ 
ship—” he began as though his niece and her 
affairs had been finally disposed of. “I know 
the influences at work there . . . ” 

“Which have made it impossible.” 

“ Quite so. But still, there will be other and 
probably better chances. Between ourselves, 
I’m mortally afraid of the President and you 
know how startling Ajnericans are apt to be. 
We must have somebody we can trust . . 

“Get a P.M. you can trust first, my dear Fil- 
mer. Until you all do—I am precluded from 
that situation.” 

Lord John pulled out his watch and shook 
his head. “We must talk, Adrian—but not at 
the house. I don’t want you there. Already 
there have been rumours of a Conservative re¬ 
crystallization—and if people think we have got 
hold of you—no, it won’t do . . . Can’t we 
meet elsewhere?” 

In Waveney’s mind lingered the conviction 
that Lord John and his clan were less important 
to the public at the moment than he might sup¬ 
pose they were . . . but his own response was 
immediate. His household was on a War foot¬ 
ing, and one never knew these days what one’s 
cook was going to do . . . but if and when it 
suited Lord John, dinner could surely be ar- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 225 

ranged. He would ask one or two others— 
Wroxeter perhaps and a lady he had in mind— 
a long talk could easily follow. 

Lord John accepted with the seriousness a 
dinner engagement demanded, and shortly after¬ 
wards the tw r o men parted. That evening Wave- 
ney rang Mrs. Ashburnham up on the tele¬ 
phone to give her the invitation. 

“I want you to meet Lord John,” he ex¬ 
plained, conscious of some bewilderment at the 
other end of the wire. “You’ll like him and it 
may be useful.” 

Amusement made her acceptance a trifle con¬ 
fused; but her vibrant voice comforted Adrian 
somehow ... he kept her at the telephone a 
few moments longer because he clung to the 
sound. When at length he hung up, it was with 
the reflection that it was only in her presence 
he ever had a remission of that nervous ten¬ 
sion so annoyingly manifest during his day. If 
Lord John should like her, it would simplify 
many things. 

If it seems unbelievable that all these things 
could go on with a total absence in Adrian’s 
mental vocabulary of the words “love” and 
* i marriage, ’ ’ one must remember that his dull¬ 
ness was not so strange under the circumstances. 
He had met her again, really convinced that the 
emotional side of their relationship was past; 
really believing that it existed now upon a plane 


226 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


of friendship merely. That he was desperately 
in love with her—more in love with her than he 
had ever been—he really didn’t know. The 
groove in which his life had lain was deep 
... he had not yet stepped out of it. 

During the next few days his mood was one 
of anticipation touched with crisis. Would Lord 
John get on with her? Was she going to fit 
in? Adaptable as her race was, one never knew 
—although one hoped and dreamed. In his fever 
—for it had become nothing less—Adrian was 
haunted by a vision of her entrance into the 
room that symbolized his real life, and of her 
possession of that room—no less than with 
wonder that this should be about to come 
to pass. 


CHAPTER XXII 


That she fitted in—that she fitted in inexpressi¬ 
bly, as no one else had ever fitted in—he knew 
the instant after her entrance and while they 
were still moving toward each other across the 
floor. The slender figure in white, with black 
head held high, belonged of right to the place, 
became at once the jewel of that settting. He 
gathered her hands in his own and held them— 
they were a little cold—not hastening to speak 
but bending on her face a gaze at once concen¬ 
trated and humble—so filled with feeling that 
her pupils dilated and she drew her hands away. 
His welcome was but a halting one and he must 
turn forthwith to meet Lord John and Wrox- 
eter, who had entered together. 

“Ah-h,” was the satisfied ejaculation of the 
latter as he caught the smile of Mrs. Ashbum- 
ham. “So here’s a friend of mine!” He 
bowed formally over Sidney’s hand and then 
presented Lord John. 

The ex-minister was shorter, slighter and 
paler than the tall, ruddy Wroxeter. His face 
was seamed with fine wrinkles; his eyes black 

and quick; his motions of the head when in- 

227 



228 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


terested, graceful, birdlike. The fine lips were 
set in a hard line as though carved out of agate 
. . . life had done this to what had been 

originally an artist’s mouth, sensitive and deli¬ 
cate. Lord John was still agile, swift of move¬ 
ment . . . his simplicity held traces of the 
grand manner, so that Sidney included him at 
once in her mental gallery of picturesque in¬ 
dividual portraits. In her imagination ever 
after—and perhaps, who knows? in his own— 
he was dressed in a velvet coat with lace ruffles, 
peruke and sword. Lord John did not dispel 
these illusions by over much talk ... he never 
talked a great deal, and he smiled very seldom 
. . . there had been very little in his life after 
all to teach him to smile. 

Adrian’s consciousness of the evening and 
its events began to fall into a sort of order, 
vaguely significant in itself and taking posses¬ 
sion of his mind, much as a procession with 
torches and banners passes through an empty 
street which it fills with the sound of its feet 
and voices. He seemed detached from, yet 
abnormally held by them. As the heads of these 
ideas swung by before his imagination, his 
nerves became even more tense with an aware¬ 
ness that he was going to have a very important 
talk later with Lord John; that Wroxeter’s eye 
was quizzical when it rested on himself and 
Mrs. Ashburnham; that his house was meant for 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 229 


this sort of thing and made a perfect back¬ 
ground for it—but that he must give up the 
house—which he regretted the more when he 
saw how she looked, moving about it so natu¬ 
rally! What an immense pleasure it gave him 
to see her pass through his favorite carven 
doorway, whose thick curtains fell softly behind 
her—and take her place at table ... to watch 
the turn of her small, fine head, the glance that 
caught his own with a sympathetic quiver . . . 
to note how her delicate pallor became the col¬ 
ours of the room and the panelling and brocade, 
which somehow had always rebuked the figure 
of their original mistress. Englishmen have so 
strong an attachment to place; so strong an in¬ 
stinct for background, that many spend their 
lives in composing harmonious and dignified set¬ 
tings for human figures which can never be 
other than violent or vulgar. It came upon 
Adrian with a shock that his house had been a 
shrine without a goddess . . . built to fulfil 
an ideal to which it had never been dedicated. 

He had no estate: his instinct for locus was 
centered in this bit of London earth—which only 
to-night came to have any meaning and reality 
for him, just as he must decide to give it 
up! The thought was bitter to the taste and 
interfered with his natural geniality. 

Mrs. Ashburnham found Lord John delightful. 
He appealed to her strong sense for the dra- 



230 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


matic quality in society and of the individualism 
so marked among its elder members. Her charm 
met quickly with response; and Lord John ex¬ 
pressed his pleasure in it with his customary 
directness. Meanwhile he enjoyed his surround¬ 
ings, although he doubtless condemned them as 
“new.” He liked Adrian’s pictures and lacquer 
cabinets and admired the Adam mantelpiece 
while he ate his dinner. 

“Nice room this,” he observed, “new, of 
course, but just what it ought to be . . . Never 
came here in her time, nobody did. But that’s 
all over, and now it ought to be useful to our 
friend here.” 

He nodded his head in his host’s direction. 
Mrs. Ashburnham found the remark just a little 
difficult to answer. 

“Yes . . . I suppose it would be hard for 
Lord Waveney to give it up,” was all she 
finally did say. 

“Give it up? Is he givin’ it up? I hadn’t 
heard he was givin’ it up . . . ” said Lord John. 

“I mean,” she explained, “when he goes to 
the States . . . if he does ... as Ambassador.” 

Lord John drank his wine and shrugged his 
shoulders ever so slightly. 

“I doubt if he goes to the States.” 

“You mean now?” 

“While this crew is in—at all events.” 

“But why . . . or is it a state secret?” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 231 

“There’s no secret in the fact that a decent 
man really can’t bind himself to do what these 
people want. The appointment is therefore not 
likely to be made in any form Adrian can 
accept. ’ ’ 

“But I thought you prided yourselves in this 
country on having no political ‘bosses’ and 
on not binding your people with promises . . . ” 

‘ ‘ Bid you really think that . . . ? ” His face 
when he smiled was cynically wrinkled and like 
old ivory . . . his black eyes grew reminiscent 
and he hastened to tell a story of his past 
which contradicted her illusion. When he got 
back to Waveney and his affairs it was to ask: 

‘ 4 Bo you want him to go . . . are !you sorry 
about it . . . why! Bo you think he’d be good 
at the job!” 

“Of course I think so! Of course, I am 
sorry! Aren’t you!” 

“You forget I’m a Conservative!” 

She made a little scornful gesture. “ I do keep 
forgetting your party lines. And I wish Eng¬ 
land would forget them and put the right man 
in the right place sometimes, were he Whig or 
Tory.” 

Her energy made Lord John smile. Then 
he asked: 

“But why are you so sure he’d be good in 
America!” 


232 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

“For half a dozen reasons. He is energetic, 
clear-headed and wise—and sympathetic besides. 

Most of the men yon send-” She paused, 

fearful of saying the wrong thing but Lord John 
was encouraging. 

“You interest me immensely. The men we 
send- V’ 

“Are apt to have been so long in their little 
diplomatic shrines that they have had no ex¬ 
perience of real life. They’ve breathed a spe¬ 
cial air. We don’t understand or like that . . . 
Lord Waveney is so unusually clear-headed.” 

“Of course he is unusual . . . Your point of 
view is new to me. Quite so—I see,” Lord 
John relapsed into a considering silence and 
she was emboldened to go on. 

“Whoever you send, I hope it will be a man 
who understands the world of work and of 
affairs. We have no use—though much admira¬ 
tion—for philosophers and essayists and diplo¬ 
matists with their tremendous ideas of their own 
importance.” 

“Quite so—quite! You have very definite 
ideas on these subjects and no doubt you may 
be right—no doubt!” Lord John said smilingly. 
“Personally, I think Adrian is far too good for 
the Liberal camp, as it is. Unfortunately, the 
American Ambassadorship is going to be one 
of the corner-stones of the new edifice to be 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 233 

erected after peace comes. It will go to some 
close friend and follower of the P.M.’s I think, 
and Adrian doesn’t like the Little Man.” 

“I know he does not,” she was impelled to go 
on. “There are other posts, are there not? 
Have you thought of them?” 

“For him, you mean?” Her interest was so 
great that Lord John hesitated. 

“Yes. If you keep him here, why not make 
him Permanent Under-Secretary to the Foreign 
Office?” 

Lord John felt his breath quite taken away. 
His black eyebrows went up to his white hair 
and his eyes snapped with merriment. 

“Well, well, well! Waveney, my dear chap, 
did you hear this? Mrs. Ashburnham and I 
are settling your political future . . .!” 

His host turned toward him and the talk 
became more general. Wroxeter had a story to 
tell about his student days in Cambridge and 
his tutor who “everlastin’ly preached morality” 
and whom he had encountered unexpectedly in 
the Burlington Arcade, “dressed as a layman 
—wearin’ lavender gloves—with a posey in his 
buttonhole and on his arm the most glor-rious 
Fairy! whom he was doubtless leadin’ to a bet¬ 
ter and a purer life!” Then he must tell another 
about the Old Queen—“you Americans do love 
to hear about Royalty—” which was a little hit 


234 , THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


at Mrs. Ashburnham—and how her Majesty’s 
love of cold rooms was nearly the death of her 
lords and ladies-in-waiting. “We nsed to hang 
the thermometer out of window whenever we 
had the chance and when she came in we’d 
show it to her . . . ‘You see, Ma’am, how very 
chilly it is,’ and then she’d let us warm up a 
bit.” Then they must all three join in an il¬ 
luminating discussion on the changes which had 
started in political life before the War—and had 
been accentuated rather than created by it. 
That led by direct roads to Ireland, on which 
Lord John’s views were most positive—even 
ferocious, and where Wroxeter’s comments were 
humourous and Adrian’s wise. 

Mrs. Ashburnham listened and laughed and 
applauded, having no unpleasant sense that she 
had been indiscreet. After dinner—and at the 
end of a talk with Waveney over their cigars, 
Lord John drew up his chair to her side again, 
where she sat near Lord Wroxeter who was 
contentedly smoking in front of the fire. 

“Not at all a bad suggestion that of yours 
—y ’know, ’ ’ Lord John said confidentially. ‘ ‘ He’d 
be a deuced good Permanent Under-Secretary. 
I shall think of it—although, as you know, I’m 
out of it all at present.” 

“Only for so long as you wish to be,” she 
suggested kindly; but his face clouded. 

“I fear not—I fear much longer. We all 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 235 

love it, y’know. The Filmers love politics and 
always have. ’T wasn’t my wish that I ever 
had to get out of it.” 

Adrian looked at them more than once, as 
they sat chatting together. The old man’s face 
was no finer, no clearer cut than Mrs. Ash- 
burnham’s. Evidently they got on well; evi¬ 
dently Lord John took to her . . . His own 
thoughts began to wander down dim, happy 
vistas, full of vague warmth and colour, where 
this force—of which just now he felt but as a 
disturbance—should possess life and lend it 
richness and beauty. Happiness, tranquillity, 
the ordered hearth—the music these things were 
to make against an even deeper, emotional 
music—yes, these were his need, just as they 
were every man’s need . . . How blind, how 
deaf he had been not to know! 

He pulled himself sharply together—conscious 
that a mood of reverie hardly becomes a host 
—and that Wroxeter—that affectionate old 
cynic, was contemplating the rise of his cigar 
smoke to the ceiling with an air of concentra¬ 
tion that was almost a rebuke. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


Adrian drew his chair closer to the little fire 
which the coming of November made so pleas¬ 
ant and to which he had added a few billets of 
wood. Then he began to narrate in his mea¬ 
sured way, something, anything which would 
serve his turn as host. An incident of his 
recent journey to Stockholm came into his mind: 
it had all the bizarre quality by which the wild¬ 
est scientific romancings of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury have become the every-day commonplaces of 
the twentieth, and also cast a new light upon the 
exhaustion of the Central Empires and their ex¬ 
aggerated terror of the Americans. The other 
two men joined in, each contributing his share, 
and Mrs. Ashburnham listened, shading her face 
from the firelight with her hand. 

There was very little light in the library (for 
the strict rationing of electricity made every¬ 
body careful) and most of it came from the 
small, flickering gleams in the grate. These cast 
their light upon the dull gold of picture frames 
and the rich background of books. Heavy cur¬ 
tains, falling in stiff straight folds, shut out the 
moonless night with its suffusion of mist. Lon¬ 
don lay very still, dwelling in a muffled pause 

236 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 237 

... no country park could have seemed more 
quiet: it gave Sidney a nervousness for which 
she could not readily account. There was no¬ 
thing tense now in the atmosphere of the room; 
Adrian’s voice was calm and modulated and 
beyond its range the house held a silence that 
seemed almost lifeless. Thus she did not fail 
to hear the vibration of the front door bell 
and the servant’s step as he crossed the hall 
to attend to its summons. There was a pause 
—the closing of a door—voices—footsteps. She 
wondered if the old cabby she had engaged to 
call for her had come before his time- 

“The Lady Claire Winstanley!” 

This announcement produced a sudden quiver¬ 
ing silence in the group gathered about the 
fire. As he made it, the butler’s hand switched 
on the lights and the figure which lingered as if 
irresolute on the threshold was thus thrown into 
strong relief. It could not have been stranger 
—to the eyes turned simultaneously upon it— 
this strangeness was the most salient impres¬ 
sion. The figure was of a young woman pain¬ 
fully thin, with arms that jerked and waved 
themselves about as if they belonged to a 
marionette. She wore the rich, straight, semi¬ 
evening dress in the fashion of the period . . . 
it was of black satin, heavily ornamented with 
beads and copper and silver threads . . . but 




238 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

this handsome, costly garment was fastened all 
awry, so that a flap dangled loose from the 
shoulder and the rest was pulled crookedly over 
her meagre bosom. Her head was bare: the 
light hair twisted upon it was half-dressed with 
ends sticking up and the jewelled comb thrust 
in anyhow . . . and the whole had a faintly 
tremulous motion exceedingly unpleasant to 
witness. The face was heavily painted, and, as it 
was thrust forward under the light, one marked 
a dull purplish flush underlying the pigment. 
The pupils of the eyes were dilated so that the 
iris had diminished to a thread . . . The 

mouth was frightened . . . 

This apparition stood for an instant, turning 
that trembling head hither and yon as though 
in search . . . and then took a staggering 

step forward and spoke: 

4 ‘Uncle John . . . There’s a man following 
me! He’s following me! Uncle John, are you 
there?” 

Lord John suppressed a groan as he quietly 
arose. This sudden evocation of the family 
curse, thrusting itself into the peaceful room, 
was almost more than he could bear. Waveney 
also rose—and moved instinctively to the side 
of Sidney’s chair. Lord Wroxeter alone re¬ 
mained seated, continuing to smoke on with the 
most admirable tranquillity, as if the servant 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 239 

had brought in letters or announced a waiting 
taxi-cab. No one answered the voice, and it 
proceeded, half terrified, half entreating: 

“Dogging me . . . he’s been dogging me all 
afternoon on Bond Street—while Laura and I 
went shopping—yes, I promised not to go—but 
one’s got to have clothes, y’know, whatever you 
men say . . . Madame Charles frightened me 
. . . and I had to take my medicine-” 

“How’d you find out I was here?” asked 
Lord John, in a voice like steel. 

“Laura told me to go straight home—but 
how could I go home with that spy dogging me 
. ,. . dogging me . . . following my taxi wher¬ 
ever it went . . . and Madame Charles warned 
me! So I went to Queen Anne’s Gate and you 
had gone . . . and they said you were here 
... so I came. I couldn’t throw him off . . . 
he’s there still . . . Send him away!” 

Her voice was full of weird inflections, now 
shrill, now hoarse . . . seemingly beyond the 
owner’s will. 

“I shall take you home,” said Lord John. 
“Adrian—is the cab still there?” 

“He’s still out there . . . waiting!” crowed 
Lady Claire, and something evil shone in her 
eyes and in the mouth which became fixed in 
a terrified grin. 

“I won’t go, Uncle John, unless you speak 
to him ... not a step, do you hear? Beside 




240 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

*—Pm tired. Yes, I know I promised not to 
take my medicine . . . but this time I had to 
take it . . . couldn’t have come here without 
my medicine ... I needed it . . . ” 

There was a hurried interchange between 
Lord John and the butler . . . “Is there any 
man there, do you know?” 

“No man but the taxi-driver, m’lord, that 
I can see . . . yes, I’ve looked, m’lord—there’s 
nobody.” 

And still the voice went on and on: “It was 
Winstanley’s spirit that warned me first . . . 
And Mme. Charles told me the most awful 
things—she warned me of danger-” 

The woman laid both hands together over her 
mouth—and looked out over them—a sickening 
spectacle of terror. 

“We shall go together,” Lord John said. 
“Come Claire!” 

But Lady Claire had drawn a step nearer 
to the fire, and turning her head, seemed to 
listen for some noise without. She nodded, 
suddenly capriciously, at Waveney. 

“He’s still out there you know!” she re¬ 
marked confidingly. “He’s from Scotland Yard 
—one of their spies—they watch me all the 
time—idiots!” she giggled; and then her voice 
turned sharply angry: “It was you —you set 
them on me, first—you let them put me in that 
place—yes—it was you.” 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 241 

“Come, Claire,’’ Lord John kept repeating, 
but his authoritative accent failed to reach her 
drug-bewildered mind. The sight of Adrian and 
the connection of his name with all that she had 
suffered seemed to act as an excitant. She made 
one of her staggering steps forward while her 
voice shrilled: 

“It was you —I shall never forget—you set 
them on me first of all—you made my father 
and uncle consent to putting me with that doc¬ 
tor—cruel—cruel!” She beat her hands to¬ 
gether—“you brought that horrible woman spy 
to my bed and forced me—forced me-” 

If only Adrian had remained where he stood 
—'absolutely quiet! But as this frantic creature 
came toward him, pulling away from her uncle 
who had her by the arm—he instinctively moved 
aside, and by this movement the light from the 
tall lamp behind him streamed full on Mrs. Ash- 
bumham’s white face as she sat frozen in her 
chair. The other’s speech was cut off short and 
then burst from her in a yell that was one of 
sheer delirium. 

“There she is—there she is—the spy—the 
spy! The dark woman, Mme. Charles warned 
me —and here she is, a Scotland Yard spy!” 
She spun suddenly around on Waveney, her 
face working: “So this is my security—my 
poor father’s security? So she wasn’t any 
Government agent but your agent—living in 




242 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


your house is she? Living with you is she 
. . .?” 

“Oh God—what filth!” cried Lord John in a 
passion of helpless disgust; but he was beside 
his niece to catch her when she fell. They got 
her into the cab somehow; the drug had begun 
to stupefy her already and her limbs refused 
support. Lord John got in beside her, and as 
the cab moved away, Adrian could hear that 
her raving had changed into whimpering . . . 
all about her medicine and Mme. Charles and 
the danger that threatened her from a dark 
lady . . . 

When the cab had disappeared, Adrian sick- 
hearted, shut the door of his house behind him 
and re-entered his library, moving mechanically 
toward where the two figures still sat and where 
Wroxeter still composedly smoked, stretching 
his long legs tranquilly toward the dying fire. 

“Cheerful young lady, that!” was his com¬ 
ment. “Well, Adrian, as you were sayin’ be¬ 
fore this totally unnecessary interruption-” 



CHAPTER XXIV 


Thirty-six hours after this incident, a large 
limousine from London drew up at the door of 
“The Larches,” which was the name of Dr. 
Grenville Frere’s exclusive and retired sani¬ 
tarium for the care of drug addicts at Cobham, 
in order to deposit in his care for the second 
and last time in her life, the Lady Claire Win- 
stanley. Lord John took her down himself after 
a very full and painful conversation with Lord 
Beauvray. The two sat together in the morn¬ 
ing-room at Beddingfield and the elder brother 
listened with pinched lips and haggard eyes to 
the others caustic and unimpassioned account 
of the occurrence. 

“ ’Tisn’t only the—er—filth of the thing,” 
Lord John proceeded, “and the danger she runs 
and all . . . it’s the goin’ back on our word 
that I mind, y’know. The Yard’s furious . . . 
says you haven’t kept the bargain. She was 
to stay home only if we never let her out of 
our sight and all the rest of it . . .To have her 
dodgin’ round Bond Street among all the 
French dressmakers and fortune-tellers—well, 
it’s too much, Beauvray, on my word, it is!” 

243 


244 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

“It's sickening . . . ” the other muttered, 
4 ‘and she had promised me-” 

“Claire’s promise!” There was a world of 
scorn in Lord John’s voice and Beauvray re¬ 
sponded only by a despairing gesture. Then, 
an idea coming to his mind, he asked dully: 

“But Laura.—how about Laura Theydon? 
When she left here they were together and I 
thought-” 

“Oh she slipped away from Laura easily 
enough . . . Claire’s damned cunning when it 
comes to the morphia. That witch-woman scared 
her badly and so she had to have her “medi¬ 
cine,” and she let Laura put her into a cab 
to come home—and she thought she was bein’ 
followed-” 

“And was she-” 

“No doubt she was,” Lord John replied 
bluntly enough, but Beauvray drew himself up 
in his chair, his face quivering. 

“Damned impertinence, I call it, if my 
daughter-” 

“My dear boy, we’ve lost the right to take 
that tone,” said his brother in icy reproof. “Re¬ 
member, it ain’t a private question. Claire 
could go and spend a week at Margate with 
any cad in town and it was only Winstanley’s 
affair, but when she gets to pumpin’ me for 
information about the Navy to sell to a black¬ 
mailing Hun -” 








THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 245 

“I know—I know-” Lord Beauvray’s en¬ 

durance was pitifully limited and even his out¬ 
raged and humiliated brother saw that he could 
stand but little more. 

“Sorry to be harsh, old man,” he said in a 
different tone and went over to the mantelpiece 
for a match. When his cigar was alight he 
turned again to face his brother and stood—a 
stately figure enough, his hands behind his back, 
on the hearth-rug. 

“You musn’t forget that I’ve paid something 
myself over this business,” he continued, his 
voice not unkindly; “but that’s not the reason 
which makes me say Claire must go back to 
that vet. in Cobham and stay there, if I have 
to take her myself. I’m not doin’ much talkin’ 
about the family either—you know that—but the 
Filmers don’t do these things. Charitably 
speaking, I’ll agree, if you like, that Claire’s 
not sane and that since she came that cropper 
she’s not responsible. Quite so—then it’s up to 
us—that’s that. Can’t have her trackin’ me into 
dinner-parties, and flingin’ Billingsgate and call¬ 
ing people names, y’know. It simply won’t do.” 

Lord Beauvray made no reply to this obvious 
truism and after a pause Lord John added: 

“The way she shouted at that Mrs. Ashburn- 
ham—and, by the way, she kept at it all the way 
home in the taxi when she wasn’t sobbin’. 
Seemed positive the lady was the nurse that 



246 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

was here—who worried a confession out of 
her. ’ ’ 

“I suppose it was just a delusion, or de¬ 
lirium f” 

“So I thought—so I think, only it puzzles 
me. Who is this Mrs. Ashburnham anyway ?” 

The elder man crowed a faint little laugh 
before he answered: “Are you asking me, 
John? How do I hear about anyone these days? 
If I have imprisoned' Claire, she has imprisoned 
me as well.” 

“Thought you might have heard. There was 
a V.C. of that name—died I think—Wroxeter 
was a friend of hers evidently—if that means 
anything. ’ ’ 

“Nothing much—unless he’s changed since 
the War,” was Beauvray’s comment, at which 
Lord John even chuckled a little. 

“Well, he wasn’t as taken as Adrian was— 
Adrian was hooked that was all . . . Charmin’ 
lady, too, American I believe. What was that 
nurse like?” 

“I never saw her, John—she came and went, 
and only Adrian and the servants saw her. He 
answered for her discretion, I remember, but 
I thought it risky at the time. None of these 
agents are people I’d trust. Now I come to 
think of it, I remember Morton tell in’ me he 
thought she was an American—very quiet, he 
said, and quite the lady.” 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 247 

“Odd—that’s a bit odd!” Lord John’s brow 
wrinkled and he studied the end of his cigar. 
“I’d not have thought of it only Claire was so 
devilish persistent, y’see—actin’ as if she recog¬ 
nized the woman. You can’t tell me anything 
more about her?” 

“Only when Adrian was here I asked him if 
she could be trusted; he got quite vexed and 
was rather short with me. I thought it was 
odd, John, at the time . . . ” 

“Hmpp!” Lord John made an ejaculation ex¬ 
pressive both of suspicion and annoyance. He 
said nothing further to his brother at the mo¬ 
ment, turning the conversation back at once to 
the subject of his niece’s immediate treatment 
and his own plans for handling her journey. 
But the idea remained in one of the lower 
layers of his consciousness as containing a pos¬ 
sible criticism of Waveney, which was the first 
he ever remembered to have made. It was a 
small thing—just a vague annoyance mingled 
with a suspicion of a something, which to his 
mind “isn’t done.” It altered imperceptibly, 
but very decidedly, his attitude toward Mrs. 
Ashburnham herself—casting as it were upon 
the radiant charm of her figure, the shadow of a 
possible class distinction. If the lady with whom 
he had dined m petit comite in Adrian’s home, 
were really a Government secret agent in whom 
Adrian was personally interested, why, of course 



248 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

she became at once another person and set into 
another category. Moreover, Adrian himself 
became set in another category. 

Lord John was as little self-conscious as men 
of his sort are apt to be, and more than that 
he was a man of wide experience; but this 
incident had been sufficient to arouse, for the 
first time, that awareness that Adrian was not 
a born Peer, but a made Peer, the son of a 
barrister, and not even “one of us,” i.e., a Con¬ 
servative. Adrian, then, had not felt the im¬ 
portance of the Filmer family enough to have 
prevented such an incident. Perhaps Claire, 
bewildered though she might be, was right? 
Then, if that were the case, the whole incident 
was “damned disagreeable,” and asking him to 
dine had been a “damned impertinence.” Yet 
surely Waveney, that man of the world, was 
not the person to make the faux pas of any 
blundering, newly ennobled cheesemonger? It 
was all very perplexing, and bothered Lord 
John not a little as he motored back from Bed- 
dingfield. His impulse had first been to go to 
Adrian and openly question him concerning 
the matter, but, on second thoughts, he decided 
to say nothing. He had enough to do, he told 
himself savagely, with making all the arrange¬ 
ments for the reception of his niece into the 
sanitarium at Cobham. But the idea and the 
shade of suspicion attached to the idea remained 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 249 

in his mind, and in Lord Beauvray’s mind, and 
were sufficient to exercise a decided influence 
over their attitude toward Waveney later on. 
Unfortunately, it was just the sort of idea that 
would most effect the minds of people like 
these people, whose pride had been already 
severely hurt. Trifling as it was, it held the pos¬ 
sibility of disingenuousness on Adrian’s part, 
and a suggestion of his real attitude toward the 
Filmer family, which dissolved obligation as by 
an insidious acid. There is no doubt that from 
this moment the influence of the Filmer family 
—in any important political sense—was lost to 
Adrian, and it was to prove a very serious loss. 
Lady Claire and her morphia were not without 
their effect upon the history of England. 

At that moment, however, Lord John’s opinion 
was the least of Adrian’s preoccupations. The 
incident distressed him beyond measure—jan¬ 
gling those taut fibres of nervous vitality which 
were already stretched beyond their limit. If 
anybody’s attitude towards it worried him more 
than his own, it was not that of Lord John but 
that of Sidney Ashburnham. That she should 
be shaken by so grim an encounter was natural 
enough—but her frozen silence had carried in 
it something beyond mere disturbance, some¬ 
thing more profound, more fatal. The remain¬ 
ing minutes of her stay in his house had spent 
themselves awkwardly in forced talk between 


250 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


Wroxeter and himself; and when her cab was 
announced she had openly welcomed it. Adrian 
waved aside the elder man’s offer to escort her 
to her home and followed her into the cab quite 
unheeding her faint protest. The driver turned 
his shaky, old horse and the two within could 
have seen, had they wished, the typical, tall 
figure of Lord Wroxeter, hat in hand—making 
gestures of farewell with a particularity that 
showed his concern. Waveney marked the dis¬ 
appearance of his stately silhouette around the 
curve of the Square and turned again to his 
companion. Her eyes were half closed: she 
looked as if she were about to faint. On his 
bending over her, she murmured a word or two 
... he saw she needed but a moment of quiet 
to restore her. Anxiously, he let down the win¬ 
dow so that the cool, damp night wind should 
blow against her face; and after a pause he 
ventured to say, very quietly: 

4 4 Of course, you realized that it was raving 
insanity? The woman is quite, quite mad; you 
know that? Mental disease was responsible.” 

She breathed a vague assent, but shuddered. 
“Yes—yes—I know—I know—but oh! her dread¬ 
ful words! Her horrible face and all—all it 
meant to me!” 

“If only I could have spared you!” 

“You could not—how could you?” 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 251 

“ Promise me you will not think of it—not let 
it trouble you—promise me!” 

“How can I promise—how can I help it?” 

The wave of agitation which overwhelmed 
her, began to flow into his heart, till he was 
helpless—like a swimmer borne down by a flood. 
His hand found hers in the darkness, closed 
over it, clung to it. Their movement through 
the universe was swift . . . and all the while 
he realized that the cab jogged soberly onward 
through the darkened streets. His own help¬ 
lessness caught him by the throat. There 
seemed no words in which to explain—to com¬ 
fort. The cab stopped. He followed her up to 
her apartment as a matter of course and she 
did not forbid him. When the little room sprang 
into light ... so tranquil, so studious, yet 
so feminine and breathing of herself, it seemed 
to release his speech in an anguish of feeling. 

“Sidney—Sidney!” 

He moved toward her, but she shrank back 
leaving her hands cold in his own. 

“Oh not again! Not again!” she cried in a 
breaking voice . . . “How can you—when you 
remember? Have you no memory—of all that 
pain?” and her words were lost in tears. 

“I remember no pain—only an exquisite joy 
—that I had to tear out of my heart because 
I had no right to cherish you there. No right 
<—in honour, I had no right . . .” 


252 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


She wept on desperately. 

“How could I do otherwise . . . ! You were 
alone, unprotected ... I couldn’t be a dastard 
. . . bring you sorrow . . .” His thread was 
lost in the face of her suffering and he could 
only repeat, “sorrow—sorrow!” 

“And that woman—that horrible, horrible 
woman—she brought it all back to me! How can 
you recall it now!” 

“I didn’t love you then, you know it—as I 
love you now ... I couldn’t ask you then to 
be my wife, as I can now! You have seen how 
it is with me these last weeks!” 

She only reiterated: “How can you! Ah, 
how can you!” as if his words were more than 
she could bear. With her trembling hands still 
fast in his own, he struggled for steadiness; and 
his feeling when he spoke was dominated by an 
utter sincerity in which she could not choose 
but believe. 

“Why do we waste time on what is past! 
. . . When we are calmer you will see—and 
understand and forgive me if I need it . . . 
Now, now, you must know my love, my fear of 
you ... I did not speak before, because I had 
too much to lose-” 

Her imploring gesture checked him, “Oh do 
not—do not say any more—I—I am afraid— 
I cannot bear it!” 

“Sidney—you loved me then.” 




THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 253 

“Then—then! Oh yes, I loved you—how I 
loved you . . . ” she seemed to thrust the words 
from her with violence . . . “But you did not 
come, and everything was different; and lately— 
lately I have come to feel intensely that after 
all, I am a stranger—a stranger who is not 
of your world.” 

“Not of my world! You are my world.” 

“No—no!” 

A wave of pallor overspread her face and 
even her lips whitened. She swayed as if about 
to fall, but stiffened, having one thought only, 
that if his arm went about her as it had done 

once before- She drew away, staggered 

over to a chair and sat down, resting her tor¬ 
mented forehead upon her hands. 

“I beg of you to go,” she implored him; “I 
can stand no more—nothing more!” 

He stood awhile, helplessly, and then with a 
gesture of mere obedience to her wishes, he very 
reluctantly left her. 




CHAPTER XXV 


The telephone message received by Miss Ren- 
dall at her hotel on the day following that of 
Lord Waveney’s dinner-party, was of a quality 
somewhat different from those to which she had 
been accustomed from her friend Mrs. Ash- 
burnham. Up to the present in their friendship, 
the dependence had been all on one side and 
Mildred could not but feel a novel sense of 
affectionate importance, when Dora’s respectful 
voice kept reiterating that Mrs. Ashburnham 
did hope nothing might prevent her from coming. 

She hurried to Farm Street, where she found 
Sidney, hugging the fire in a long straight tea- 
gown which made her look paler than ever. 
The look wfith which she greeted Mildred was 
listless and weary and her eyes were darkened 
as though from sleeplessness. In response, how¬ 
ever, to the other’s devoted enquiries, she 
avowed to a nervous chill and a bad night fol¬ 
lowing on a startling and disagreeable experi¬ 
ence, which had left her feeling decidedly shaky. 
What the experience was she did not say, and 
somehow Mildred felt that she could not ask. 
What Sidney wanted of her, as she soon dis¬ 
covered, was something more definite than a 

254 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 255 

visit of sympathy—nothing less, indeed, than 
that they should take the first steps in search 
of a passport that very day. 

This decision was so entirely unprepared for 
that Mildred found herself perplexed in mind. 
She began, innocently enough, to interrogate 
her friend as to the reasons for her sudden 
change of front—taking, from conscientiousness, 
the opposite side of the matter and recapitulat¬ 
ing to Sidney all those same objections to the 
journey which Sidney had been wont to make 
to her. Mrs. Ashburnham could only shake her 
head, and then, to Mildred’s great distress, she 
suddenly hid her face and burst into bitter 
sobbing. So violent a storm of weeping in one 
generally so cool and composed, indicated that 
her underlying disturbance had been profound; 
and Mildred, with her arm about the shaken 
shoulders, began to be conscious of alarm. But 
though Sidney freely wept, she gave no explana¬ 
tion of her tears, and her friend was too fond 
of her to doi aught but pity and soothe. They 
spent the day together. Mrs. Ashburnham’s 
emotion once relieved, she regained her self- 
possession and was soon able to set forth on a 
round which began at Grosvenor Gardens and 
went on to include the Home Office and Cock- 
spur Street. She learned that the sailing was 
expected in a few days of a “women and chil¬ 
dren’s ship”—by which was meant a liner sufik 


256 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

ciently speedy to minimize the danger from sub¬ 
marine attack. If she could not get passage 
thereon, it might be weeks ere she could get 
another chance. About a passport the Home 
Office was non-committal—rules were rules—and 
Englishwomen were not supposed to travel. At 
the same time, the widow of Colonel Ashburn- 
ham, V.C.—American born and on a business 
trip—could count on due consideration and 
would receive whatever chance arose. The two 
therefore returned to luncheon with a feeling 
that the situation was promising at least. 

Sidney, though looking far from well, seemed 
to have regained steadiness, and, when later in 
the afternoon, Gervase Fallon was announced, 
bearing a portfolio of sketches made in Russia 
and wearing his customary half-shy, yet faintly 
cynical smile, Mildred felt that she might safely 
depart. Her expression, as she walked rapidly 
through Berkeley Square, was both puzzled and 
grave; and, as she mounted Hay Hill, she was 
already occupied in dictating to herself the let¬ 
ter that she determined to write that evening, 
containing a full account of the matter for 
George. 

Fallon was interesting and interested on hear¬ 
ing that his hostess hoped ere long to go to the 
States. He had work there himself, he told 
her. One of the great newspaper syndicates had 
asked him to attend the Peace Conference— 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 257 

which everybody now expected would be sum¬ 
moned not later than the spring—as their spe¬ 
cial representative and correspondent. Already, 
wires were being pulled and fish were being 
got ready for the frying-pan. He knew of one 
or two smaller nations whose diplomatic rep¬ 
resentatives were already packed and ready— 
at the first hint of an armistice, to rush, to 
London or Paris and present their claims. One 
would have to go to the States first—because 
one would never get there afterwards once 
things began to happen. 

So Fallon talked on, and Sidney listened— 
until his next appointment took him away. He 
was followed—a little late for tea—by Lord 
Wroxeter, whose greeting: “And how are you 
to-day, my dear?” was one in which the old- 
fashioned gallantry was but the cloak of a gen¬ 
uine solicitude. Somehow, it was easier to talk 
to Wroxeter than to Mildred Rendall. One 
hardly knew why. His long figure at ease in 
his chair while he smoked; his big, smooth hand 
with the rings on it; his immovable countenance 
filled with knowledge of men and women and of 
tolerance for their weakness and failure; the 
repose, the confidence one felt in his good- 
breeding; the strength of his irremediable gen¬ 
tlemanliness—all these brought her help and 
comfort. This elderly, exotic survival of the Vic¬ 
torian order, and with most of its reprobated 


258 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


failings—what a friend he was! How sensible! 
How loyal! 

“ ’Course, I know how you must be feelin’ ” 
was his comment, “beastly affair, what? Poi¬ 
sonous female that—mad as a hatter, my dear! 
Don’t know what the Filmers are doing to let 
her trot around like that. Takin’ you for some 
spy or other—good Lord! Too absurd to let it 
bother you.” 

Sidney assured him that it didn’t, while yet 
showing so very plainly that it did. At the 
same time, she unfolded the business which was 
calling her home, and was grateful for the di¬ 
rectness with which he accepted her statements, 
while giving no sign in his dignified expres¬ 
sion that he knew of any other reason than the 
one she was giving him, for a voyage overseas 
at the present time. She read him George 
Kendall’s letter and handed him Mr. Peter 
Sampson’s two cablegrams, in justification of 
asking his help with the Home Office regarding 
the passport. Certainly, in Lord Wroxeter’s 
opinion, the chance to secure fortune in America 
needed no justification. He had all the belief 
of the Englishman of his caste, that the chief 
duty of the United States was to supply such 
chances. To his mind, the journey was a matter 
of simple necessity, one far outweighing any 
consideration of sentiment. Had Mrs. Ashbum- 
ham asked his aid, for example, to go to see an 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 259 

ailing parent, he would doubtless have reminded 
her of what * 6 isn’t done,” and have suggested 
that all such matters as family affection must 
give way in War-time. But money was a dif¬ 
ferent matter, and there was no one, he felt, he 
would rather see with plenty of money than 
his little friend Mrs. Ashburnham. He liked 
her heartily; liked her for her poise, her looks, 
her clothes and her humour, liked her because, 
although his manner to her might be caressing, 
he was well aware that it must never be too 
caressing. And above all he liked her because, 
as the years went on, a lonely man—be he Peer 
or commoner—grows more and more dependent 
on the welcome at a friend’s hearth. 

Of course she must get a passport. When he 
once made up his mind as to a given course, 
Lord Wroxeter’s manner had a finality which 
carried weight, and Sidney could hardly have 
found, in the whole world of London influence, a 
personality of more value in coming to her aid. 
He put on his eye-glasses, he spread the cable¬ 
grams out before him; he read them aloud in his 
cultivated articulation and with that balanced 
sagacity and air of business shrewdness of 
which he privately fancied himself the embodi¬ 
ment. And his conclusion was that he should 

see about the permit at once. 

“Y’know there’s no telling about this crew 
—what they’ll do or who they will favour. 


260 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


There’s no telling at all. But we’ll see what 
can be done. And then, you have other friends, 
y’know. How about them! It all helps, and 
Waveney could do far more thaii I can.” 

“I had rather not ask him.” 

Over his glasses he looked very kindly at her 
vhite face. 

“He’ll do anything, y’know,” he said with 
deliberate emphasis; “he’s a wonderful fella 
—Adrian. And he’ll do anything you ask him, 
my dear.” 

“But you see, I—I don’t want him to know.” 

Lord Wroxeter removed his glasses, polished 
them and replaced them in their case. He then 
resumed his cigar, fixing his eyes on a corner 
of the ceiling. He had an air of waiting which 
it was impossible to ignore. 

“Let’s talk about something else,” she said, 
and there was pain in her voice. 

Lord Wroxeter shrugged, but he obeyed her 
wish. His mind, as he later slowly proceeded 
along Mount Street, was full of regret in which 
there was little curiosity and less surprise. 
With women, his own relations had ever fol¬ 
lowed the primal order—desire, satisfaction and 
satiety—departing from it only in one respect: 
that he invariably tried to be friends with the 
lady afterwards and usually with the most dis¬ 
astrous results. In Adrian’s situation, as con¬ 
ceived by him, the most unnecessary complica- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 261 

tions existed, which, though he could not define, 
yet he could perceive to be the cause of quite 
superfluous pain and misunderstanding. Yet 
he was very sympathetic and always sentimental, 
and probably in all London there was no oire 
more capable of viewing with comprehension 
the vicissitudes of this exceedingly modern love 
affair. Why was Mrs. Ashburnham running 
away? His sympathy carried him far enough 
to ring up Waveney’s private number at the 
Foreign Office; but Parker at the other end was 
vague and gave him to understand only that his 
lordship was out of town. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


In point of fact, Waveney was out of town in a 
political and Pickwickian sense rather than in 
a literal one. He had returned home that night 
in a very disturbed state of mind, had not ex¬ 
pected to sleep, had not slept, but instead had 
marked the slow wheeling of the hours, each 
bringing its fresh problem which he was unable 
to resolve. The disorientation of his life had 
reached a point where even the landmarks were 
strange to him. More than that, he had lost 
confidence, for the time being, in his own power 
of control. Nothing had turned out as he had 
hoped . . . and the fabric so smoothly, so in¬ 
tellectually planned, so that it should be a weave 
of even and perfect texture showing nothing but 
success—had become a tangled web of broken 
threads. Fate had snarled the skein using those 
very forces of emotion which he had always be¬ 
lieved himself capable of guiding to his own 
ends. He, who had always acted on the assump¬ 
tion that in the life of the wise there are no 
tragedies, became suddenly convinced of his own 
utter helplessness. Surely, it would have been 
saner if he had trusted his whole career to the 

blind Madonna of Chance. What use of prove- 

262 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 263 

nance and prudence, of tact and care? With all 
his precaution, that was abroad which he most 
desired to keep hidden, and he had failed utterly 
in what he chiefly desired to accomplish. 

Sidney’s pained rebuff had been unexpected. 
He had turned his gaze upon her as upon the 
past and looked to see the face quivering with 
passionate response which he had never forgot¬ 
ten. This illusion vanished with the rest . . . 
in the black spaces of despairing night it mocked 
at him. Here was but another failure, founded 
on his first costly renunciation. Yet—he asked 
himself with incredulous bitterness, had he de¬ 
served the outcome? He had put the woman he 
loved beyond his reach for her sake as well as 
his own. Now, his world was but an empty 
stage, background to nothing; his activity was 
emptiness and led but to a vacant and a pom¬ 
pous goal. 

This mood of introspection was exceedingly 
foreign to a nature like Adrian’s and was in 
itself indicative of the strain upon his nerves. 
His susceptibility to it annoyed him. All through 
his life he had met disappointment with a shrug, 
the failure of a given plan with tranquil re¬ 
adjustment. Not the least of his trials, when 
he arose after this torment, was the anxious con¬ 
sciousness that he had lost the wish to shrug— 
that what concerned Sidney and himself had 
bitten below the power of tranquil re-adjust- 


264 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

ment. His first action, after day had really 
crept over the house-tops, was to write her an 
imploring letter. While doing so, he became 
aware that his head felt unnatural, his body 
strange—which symptoms he laid to his sleep- 
ness night—and so thrust the note into his 
pocket to be addressed and posted later on, after 
he had breakfasted. 

Parker came before he had finished his coffee, 
bringing the mail, papers and a list of engage¬ 
ments indicating a heavy day. Adrian sum¬ 
moned himself to deal with these; but just as 
he was leaving the house, he was seized with 
vertigo and would have fallen but for his sec¬ 
retary’s arm. The attack was short and passed 
off in half-an-hour, when he insisted, rather 
against Parker’s advice, on proceeding to White¬ 
hall in a taxi. 

There he met with unusual demands upon his 
energy, for the news had been the cause of rest¬ 
less activity in all departments. Talk was now 
of the future, of individual schemes and ambi¬ 
tions, of promises on the eve of fulfilment and of 
changes awaiting their hour. As the day waned, 
he went over to the House of Commons to hear 
the Premier announce important news; he 
marked how Fact had outdone Rumor and how 
the atmosphere was pregnant with crisis. . . . 
The corridors hummed with excitement. . . . 
Then he went back to the Lords and sat while 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 265 

the debate droned on. Either it was particular¬ 
ly dull or his head was: he became irritated, im¬ 
patient, marvelling at the familiar lack of alert¬ 
ness in the expression of his colleagues. One 
or two faces glanced at him, marking his notable 
pallor, which shone white against the scarlet and 
dull-gold framework—and wondering perhaps 
what the cause of it might be. 

The second attack of vertigo was much more 
severe and prolonged than the first. Had it not 
been for Lord Welden, who carried him home 
quickly and quietly in his motor, Waveney would 
have found that haven difficult to reach. By 
morning his illness was evident, and the doctor 
was summoned, who commanded rest in no un¬ 
certain manner. How ill he might be, the physi¬ 
cian either could or would not say. There was 
great exhaustion—nervous and physical. Such 
breakdowns were by no means uncommon and 
were of two sorts . . . those which resulted 
merely from the effects of outside strain and 
overwork . . . and those where the cause lay 
deeper, in some organic deterioration. The 
first type was indicated here, but no one could 
be certain at the present stage. 

All that week, Adrian lay dull and drowsy: 
too weak, too cloudy to gather into definite ques¬ 
tioning, the vague thoughts floating through his 
troubled consciousness. He dozed but could not 
sleep much; he was perpetually struggling 


266 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

against some overwhelming current, which tend¬ 
ed to carry him farther and farther from shore. 
He suffered no pain, but sickness and distress; 
he could express nothing but the sense of work 
unfinished, of questions unanswered and tasks 
undone. He was constantly sending Parker to 
answer the telephone—the message was never 
the one that he desired. He did not dream, of 
course, that his letter to Sidney Ashburnham 
had lain in his pocket until Parker saw fit to 
place it—as it was sealed, yet bore no address— 
among the other papers on his desk. 

There were plenty of kind telephone en¬ 
quiries, there were flowers and messages and 
notes. An elderly relation conceived it her duty 
to come down, stay a day or two, and look to the 
sick man’s comfort. But many of his friends, 
foreseeing the near approach of busier days— 
had snatched the chance of a country-visit and 
among them w 7 as Lord Wroxeter. 

There came a day, when Adrian felt stronger; 
the rest had begun to take effect and the doctor 
spoke cheerfully. ... He was allowed to sit 
up and glance at the papers . . . and, although 
the doctor shook his head when Adrian asked 
for the telephone, yet the patient’s eyes had 
a look of such impatience, such trouble, that he 
felt it would be wiser to yield. . . . 

Dora’s voice, when finally he succeeded in get¬ 
ting the number to answer, was a perplexed one 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 267 

—choked with tears. Didn’t his lordship know? 
Mrs. Ashbumham had tried her very best to tell 
everybody . . . but then everything had been 
so uncertain; one did not know from day to day 
what was going to be the result. And then— 
when the papers had actually appeared—they 
had all been in such a rush! Of course, she had 
meant to leave a good-bye message, and she had 
sailed for the States yesterday morning. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


An illness is like an ocean voyage; when at last 
one makes a safe port, it is to find oneself in a 
strange country. The six weeks of Waveney’s 
inaction were fraught with more changes than 
his life had ever known. Armistice Hay, with 
its riot of rejoicing had come and gone; the 
world had closed the red volume and had begun 
to read the black. But this change affected him 
less than he had feared it would . . . decision 
was taken out of his hands by the event nor 
could he deny that it was a relief. He spent a 
long November in the New Forest, quite alone, 
and if not happy, at least in peace. This was 
his first pause for over six years, and as his 
breakdown had been due to that long overwork— 
plus the background of strain, and as he was 
constitutionally a sound man—his recovery was 
not delayed. 

When at length he returned to his desk, it 
was to a situation altogether different from that 
he had left. By his illness— although perhaps 
not more than by his previous attitude—he had 
lost any chance of a post on the new formed 
Peace Commission. Lord John might have put 
him forward by a word, but Adrian knew why 
Lord John had not spoken that word and would 

269 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 269 

not speak it. Wroxeter, whose shrewdness was 
no greater than his frankness and who stood 
with Lord Beauvray and the Filmers on their 
own level—Wroxeter had left Adrian in no doubt 
as to their attitude. 

“ They ’re proud, old chap,—they’re all proud, 
and your danglin’ the family skeleton is more 
than they like to see,” he had observed, and he 
was right. 

Thus Waveney, during that fateful winter, 
was only the able man who must take his chance, 
and one, moreover, whose chance was not where 
it had been. A General Election had confirmed 
in power the group of men for whom he felt no 
sentiment but distrust . . . and his more theo¬ 
retical intellectual point of view accentuated that 
distrust and told against him. During the War 
his efficiency and tact had been drawn upon 
every day—every hour—but that page once 
turned, the old greed, the old party-passion, 
crowded back, and these qualities might very 
well be overlooked or forgotten. His post in the 
Foreign Office was assured to him as long as 
he chose to remain in it—but promotion was no 
longer certain, and in the drama now being 
staged at Paris, he was not given a speaking 
part. No doubt he would be called upon to dis¬ 
entangle whatever skein his superiors might 
snarl: and he felt without bitterness that Des¬ 
tiny had merely resolved his perplexities for 



270 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


him, according to her own quite uncomplimen¬ 
tary fashion. 

Meanwhile, he had received a very good offer 
to let his house, furnished, which relieved him 
of other anxieties. Certain rich influential 
Americans, brought to London by the present 
exigency, were only too glad to secure a back¬ 
ground for their social activities at once so dig¬ 
nified as to be typically English, while yet not 
lacking in that comfort and convenience to which 
they were accustomed in their own land. The 
rental was sufficient to ease Waveney’s mind, 
and he signed the lease with relief. At the same 
time, he ironically reflected that the title, to gain 
which he doubtless owed his illness, thus be¬ 
came a whimsical bestowal on a landless, child¬ 
less man for whom its dignities threatened to 
be naught but a burden. Certainly Burcote, the 
little Kentish village where he was bom and 
whose name had been added to his for want of 
an estate—Burcote knew no Waveney and was 
not likely to know one. Adrian began to think 
of his home as a renounced dream—something 
to be definitely thrown overboard during the 
voyage he proposed to make. If this lease led 
to a sale, he was ready. He meant to marry Sid¬ 
ney Ashburnham, and, after marriage, he could 
even less afford to live in Smith Square than 
to-day. 

To this one thought, their marriage, he re- 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 271 


eurred again and again, as one clings to the only- 
hope which should make life worth living. In 
his anaemic folly he had let her slip—had let 
pass the chance of happiness, of creating a 
warm, a real nucleus of life, from which alone, 
as he had come lately to realize, it drew mean¬ 
ing and value. His hesitation had been the 
effect of his world—had sprung from immemo¬ 
rial questions of prudence and expediency which 
he took to be the part of wisdom—and while he 
hesitated, she had fled. He knew very well that 
this journey was a flight. In the truth of that 
lay his only comfort—she would surely not have 
fled unless she loved him. He had read that 
love in her troubled eyes . . . and now she 
was gone. 

Unfortunately, at the moment he could not 
follow her. One could not leave the bridge just 
as the sorely battered ship was making har¬ 
bour—especially, one could not leave when one 
had failed to receive promotion. Though all the 
others were dashing greedily about, each bent 
on his own ends, Waveney must stay at his 
post. Illness had kept him away too long al¬ 
ready. No: he could not take ship for the States 
much as he longed to do so. . • • Work, the 
only panacea, the only stimulant, must be well 
done, proudly done, because we stand for what 
we are. The spectacle which Adrian presented 
during this trying winter: that of a man stead- 


<m THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

fastly in his place, was one carrying conviction 
into unknown quarters. There never seemed a 
time when the self-seeker was so omnipresent 
. . . the reaction from the spirit of sacrifice 
seemed almost violent. Everybody demanded 
everything . . . and most of all to stop work. 
Only Lord Waveney, though he might accom¬ 
plish little, remained at his desk. He comforted 
himself and sustained his spirit by long letters 
to an American address—letters which he strug¬ 
gled to keep to the tone of calm intimacy. 

Often, during the pauses in our lives, when 
we seem to ourselves to count for little, to have 
been stranded into inaction by some adverse 
eddy of that current which should have carried 
us on to fortune—often at such times we store, 
though all unconsciously, the energy for a fresh 
advance. Waveney’s attitude toward Govern¬ 
ment must have made itself felt invisibly but 
powerfully, as his work made itself felt. He 
was too good for them—he belonged to the fu¬ 
ture. What was not known was his attitude 
toward Party: his sympathies were generally 
supposed to have drifted into Conservative chan¬ 
nels. This was the usual evolution of the en¬ 
nobled Liberal. The doubt of it, in his: case, 
was the immediate reason for a visit which was 
paid to Lord John Filmer, in his study at Queen 
Anne’s Gate, by Mr. James Spangler, the prom¬ 
inent Labour Member. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 273 

The interview must have drawn picturesque¬ 
ness from the highly coloured personalities tak¬ 
ing part in it. Spangler was one of those 
heavy-footed minds, often highly astute in their 
way, which have had so favourable a reaction to 
the forces behind English life. They would be 
impossible, politically speaking, in any other 
country. Their slowness, the rumbling of their 
psychological machinery at the insertion of any 
new idea, is there synonymous with security. 
That quick means shallow, that cleverness is 
a taint—these are fundamental beliefs in those 
English eyes who regarded Spangler as un¬ 
questionably sound. To him, contrast Lord 
John, pale, fine, colourless and even romantic, 
perfectly affable because perfectly removed, and 
perfectly removed because he was Lord John 
Filmer. Mr. Spangler was a man of heavy, 
rugged frame and stolid features. One imag¬ 
ined him saying, “Me lord, I hope I see you 
well?” with the inward comment: “He can be 
naught to me as I can be naught to him—” 
which is the underlying assumption of class dis¬ 
tinctions. 

Equally well, can one imagine Lord John’s 
greeting: “How are you, Mr. Spangler, how 
are you?” full of the simplicity and heartiness 
with which a Filmer always greeted a person 
in another class. Incidentally it should be 
added that it was Lord John, not Mr. Spangler, 


274 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

who perfectly saw that the political future be¬ 
longed to the latter. This accounts for more 
than it shows. 

The two had a good deal to say, and the con¬ 
versation went on awhile—Spangler mumbling 
slowly along after his crisp and non-committal 
host—until the real subject, for which both had 
been waiting, finally came out. Spangler re¬ 
garded Lord John as the inevitable leader of 
the Tory party—if there should ever be one 
in future. Labour had tended to incline more 
toward the Tories—whose faults and virtues 
they knew—than toward that shifting and shal¬ 
low Liberalism by which they had felt them¬ 
selves betrayed. This was a tentative period 
during which plans must be laid. What Mr. 
Spangler wished to know were the affiliations 
of Lord Waveney. 

Lord Waveney had done remarkably good 
work and had handled one or two ugly strike 
crises (during which Spangler had come into 
contact with him) with an unusual and impres¬ 
sive combination of firmness and justice. He 
worked steadily—which Labour appreciated. He 
was not self-seeking. “ ‘Tis a gude man, yon,” 
Spangler added reflectively and Lord John as¬ 
sented. Labour had need of Lord Waveney 
. . . and though it was known that he was un¬ 
sympathetic with the Premier,—it was not 
known whether or no he was officially allied with 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 275 


Lord John’s party. If the Tories were definite¬ 
ly committed to Waveney and he to them, then 
naturally in any change of Government, he must 
receive his promotion from the hands of Lord 
John or Lord Beauvray. 

There was not the slightest doubt in Spang¬ 
ler’s mind as to whom the King would send for 
to form the next Ministry, although he had many 
doubts as to how long was such a Ministry like¬ 
ly to last. . . . Suppose, however, that Wave¬ 
ney were not already committed . . . then the 
Labour party might feel itself at liberty to ap¬ 
proach him. . . . 

All this came out very slowly in broad York¬ 
shire—and Lord John listened impassively, his 
head laid back in his favourite chair. Of course 
he had, or thought he had, no doubt as to 
Adrian’s preferences; a year ago his answer 
would have been as swift as it was positive. 
To turn Waveney over to the Labour people 
would have been unthinkable, for he personally 
had never doubted that time—and marriage— 
would make Waveney 4 ‘one of us.” But he 
had changed. The image of his friend now 
evoked another and more suspicious image, that 
of the charming Mrs. Ashburnham—and he 
could not dissociate them. There had been a 
great deal of gossip about Mrs. Ashburnham’s 
sudden departure for the States. Lady Allott 
had talked; and the Theydons, father and 



276 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

daughter, had said various things. The Gov¬ 
ernment was supposed to have had a hand in 
it—everybody knew that was why Waveney had 
not received promotion. Her conduct had led 
old Mrs. Ashburnham-Cubitt to cancel the al¬ 
lowance she made her nephew’s widow and 
go back to Derbyshire in a rage. 

All these things,—most of which he did not 
believe—caused Lord John to sit in silence for 
a few moments, although he did not look at 
his guest. Then his answer came in quite easy 
and final terms. 

Lord Waveney, for all the Tories knew, was 
quite free: under no circumstances would he 
be offered a portfolio in the eventuality al¬ 
luded to by Mr. Spangler. He would say no 
more. He followed these words by rising and 
it needed no further hint to show that the in¬ 
terview was at an end. 

The Labour member was not perceptive 
enough to wonder very much. He had ob¬ 
tained all and more than he wanted. Between 
ourselves he admired Adrian none the less . . 
although he attributed Lord John’s attitude to 
quite wrong causes. As he went away in the 
rain, he reflected that the one thing these aris¬ 
tocrats could not forgive an outsider was his 
attempt to enter their own circle. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 


Women are always the first to hear political 
gossip; no one knows exactly how they do it, 
but they do. Mr. James Spangler’s wife was 
exceedingly proud of him, regarding him as 
the bulwark of the State; yet it is unlikely 
that he confided the substance of his interview 
to her. Lord John had a sister—the Lady 
Priscilla, of whom mention has been made 
already in these pages—and after Spangler’s 
departure he went upstairs to tea with her; 
yet there is no reason to suppose that he talked 
more than usual. Of course, as he was Lord 
John, he could not be expected to possess the 
bourgeois reticence of Spangler—he was as 
indiscreet as a Duke and that is saying a good 
deal. On this occasion, however, it was his 
firm opinion that he said nothing whatever and 
maybe he was right. Perhaps the old butler 
listened at the keyhole . . . Certainly, after 
Lord John had drunk his tea, and was heard to 
leave the house, Lady Priscilla spilled the dog 
out of her lap and went to the telephone to call 
up Laura Theydon . . . Lady Priscilla was 
exceedingly busy that afternoon—on account 
of rumours that those dreadful people in the 
Ministry of Food were going to reduce the 

277 


278 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

rations of pet dogs one-half—she was more than 
driven, as she assured Miss Theydon. Still, she 
did call her up, and, at what she confided, Laura 
was very much alarmed. 

Since the word had reached her that Mrs. 
Ashburnham had sailed for the States, Laura 
made one or two efforts to see Waveney and 
had found him pleasant and cordial and cool 
as of old. Since going into chambers he was 
more dependent on hospitality than he had been 
in Smith Square—he was essentially “homme 
d’interieur” and grew weary to death of his 
gloomy club. This lonely state gave Laura 
a chance of renewing their friendship which she 
was not slow to seize. The news Priscilla 
Filrner communicated was a decided shock . . . 
something must be done about it at once. If 
it was really true that on account of Mrs. 
Ashburnham, the Filmers were willing to let 
Waveney slide into the clutches of that hor¬ 
rible Labour Party and thus end his chance 
of becoming “one of us”—surely Mrs. Ash¬ 
burnham had a great deal to answer for. 

Waveney responded to Laura’s summons to 
a cup of tea with her, with flattering prompti¬ 
tude. She did not know that he found him¬ 
self marvelling how he could ever have com¬ 
pared for an instant her handsome stolidity 
and cut and dried opinions, with Sidney’s dark, 
delicate beauty and sensitive, stimulating mind. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 279 

He greeted her in his own friendly fashion, 
however, and sat down obediently, though his 
smile faded when she began with great serious¬ 
ness to unfold what she termed “the matter 
of great importance’’ she had to tell him. Her 
manner in doing this was quite admirable— 
partly confiding, partly aloof, and tinged with 
all the warmth of partisanship. Nevertheless, 
Waveney very nearly hated her for raising 
the subject. 

“And so—” said Laura, shaking the green 
earrings till they rattled . . . “I felt that you 
ought to know this at once before more harm 
was done. Of course I know how you feel 
about the Filmers, and 1 can imagine how much 
it would annoy you to have it supposed for 
an instant that these Labour people had any 
possible reason-” 

“Wait a minute!” he said, raising his hand 
—“wait, Miss Theydon! I don’t quite gather 
. . . just what it is about all this you sup¬ 
pose would annoy me?” 

She perceived that she had shown a trifle 
too much eagerness: feeling it in the cool 
current of his voice. 

“The whole thing, I supposed, would annoy 
you,” she replied, fussing among the teacups. 
“Naturally you counted on Lord John’s sup¬ 
port, and it would be dreadful to have it with¬ 
drawn through an injustice . . . ” 




£80 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


“It occurs to me that this is his affair, not 
mine. ,, 

“Your’s in so far that a word from you 
would set it right.’’ 

“What word—if I may ask?” 

She was a trifle bewildered. “The word 
that of course they are wholly wrong in what 
they think—that you have no desire in future 
to be under obligations to the Spanglers ! 9 y 

“But my dear friend!” he paused, smiling 
faintly; his hand, thinner since his illness, play¬ 
ing with the tassel of the chair, “but, my dear 
friend after all, I am under obligations to none 
of them .. . . certainly not to the Filmers. 

If anything, they are under obligations to me.” 

“Surely,” Laura said, “it would be most 
unwise to have them antagonistic to you; all 
on account of . . . ” 

She checked: so far the name of Mrs. Ash- 
burnham had not been spoken . . . “of a mis¬ 
understanding . . . ” she finished quickly. 

“The misunderstanding is not mine, you 
know!” he continued to speak, with slight 
pauses for greater earnestness . . . “You 
seem to forget that the responsibility in all 
this disgusting business of Lady Claire Win- 
stanley belongs to her father and uncle. If 
you wish my view ... if you wish my view 
—they have behaved with great weakness. On 
account of a drug habit—whose very origin 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 281 

was a disgrace—Lady Claire became a public 
scandal and menaced the honour of the family. 
They were told to keep her shut up—instead 
of which they let her run about London with 
you and finally wind up with a scene of hysteria 
at my house during which she insulted a lady 
who was my guest. That they should be pitiful 
to this—to this unfortunate member of their 
clan, is perhaps understandable, but that she 
could affect their judgment about me or any¬ 
one else—is of course incredible—quite in¬ 
credible. ' * 

There was a great deal in this speech that 
was displeasing to Laura. In the first place, 
it told her nothing more than she knew already. 
She had half-consciously built on having the 
whole scandalous affair revealed to her, of 
which she knew only a part. She had counted 
on Waveney's confiding in her—and on that 
thrill of intimacy between them which he cer¬ 
tainly failed to evoke. Moreover, his atti¬ 
tude toward the Filmers irritated and even 
shocked her. 

“You surprise me, I confess,” she acknowl¬ 
edged. “Perhaps—perhaps we'd better speak 
more plainly?'' 

“So far as I am concerned,” said Waveney 
flatly, “we had better not speak at all.” 

“You mean you don't want to set things right 
with Lord John? . . . Surely—when you think 



282 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


of the future . . . the Goat cannot last forever 
and the king is certain to send for Lord John!” 

Waveney had risen to set down his teacup. 
“Are we to discuss politics all this afternoon?” 
he asked coldly. He annoyed Laura more and 
more, and she grew a little less careful—a little 
less discreet. 

“It isn’t politics at all,” she said, a slight 
colour coming into her cheek and a quiver to 
her voice—“it’s a personal matter affecting 
your future—this whole thing. You know per¬ 
fectly well that neither the Filmers nor Papa 
nor I, nor any of us in fact, care who your 
friends are in private or what relations you 
may have with them . . . What this Mrs. Ash- 
burnham may be to you is nothing whatever to 
us. You must know what everybody is saying 
about her. It’s when you mix the affair up 
with people like the Filmers that it counts, and 
I maintain they have a right to be angry . . . 
All I have tried to do—” and here her voice 
shook, for she was very sorry for herself— “is 
to point out that a man who wants the things 
in life you want, simply cannot afford to ignore 
the really important people and get their backs 
up ... I can’t understand you at all . . . ” 
Her speech died out, for he was looking at her 
with a face of white anger that she had never 
seen before. He was really thinking in a sort 
of stupefaction that the fact Laura Theydon 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 283 

thought the woman she hated was his mistress, 
should be so unimportant to her in comparison 
with the fact that this woman had displeased the 
Filmers. “It’s time their world went!” was 
his conviction. 

Characteristically, he remained silent: not 
affected by her agitation—she was struggling 
with tears by this time—but coldly aloof until 
she had time to recover. 

“You make me f-feel how f-foolish it is to try 
and help a man—ever!” she finally got out; 
“I’ll never do it again . . . What good will it 
do you to stick up for Mrs. Ashburnham and 
lose everything? She’s gone away and she’s 
not likely to return to England.” 

“Not as Mrs. Ashburnham,” said Waveney’s 
quiet voice, “but I hope—as Lady Waveney.” 

He took his leave of her immediately in the 
silence that followed this remark, with a manner 
so admirably formal and controlled as to leave 
Miss Theydon more furious than ever. Even 
though he had said nothing—perhaps because 
of it—she was conscious that he had had control 
of the interview from the first. She had allowed 
his reticence to lead her on far, far beyond the 
bounds of prudence—and now he was leaving 
her—quite unaffected himself, to an outburst 
of disappointed and angry tears. 

As for Waveney, his rage had shaken his 
strength; but the interview had brought him 




284 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


on the whole exultation. Not again for him to 
mistake the real things of life for the artificial; 
or the relations of society for the fundamental 
relations. 

What cared he for the Filmers and Laura 
Theydon—people who, while knowing him so 
long and so well as he had supposed, could 
imagine him guilty of these puerile outrages 
and not even consider them as important! 

The interview tested his nervous strength but 
found it firm . . . above all, it crystallized his 
determination to seek Sidney at once—to light 
his hearth-fire if need be in a far country—to 
leave this chaos until something like order had 
formed from it. He and she would find other 
work to do and a life that should taste sweeter 
in the mouth. 

He sat late that night writing her a long, long 
letter . . . and then he wrote several others of 
very great importance. When he slipped out 
to put them into the pillar-box with his own 
hand, he greeted the tranquil evening sky and 
the great, white moon that swam in it, with the 
smile of a lightened heart. 



EPILOGUE 

















CHAPTER XXIX 


On a pleasant February day, Mrs. Carter Ren- 
dall of Hempstead, L. I., accompanied by her 
daughter Linda (Mrs. Corbitt), took the morning 
train as usual, for her weekly visit to New York. 
She was a small, quick woman, with hair still 
wavy and ruddy, a round face like her daughter 
Mildred’s, and a pair of kind, observant eyes. 
Mrs. Corbitt was some inches taller than her 
mother and rather more seriously handsome. 
Both were amazingly well-dressed, although 
proudly asserting that they “hadn’t had a new 
thing for ages,” and Linda invariably referred 
to her blouse of fine needle-work and real lace 
as “rags, my dear!” 

The day in town was to include shopping— 

with its necessary prelude of a visit to Mr. 

Corbitt’s office—a recital (both of them were 

honestly musical)—and a visit to Mildred’s 

friend, Mrs. Ashburnham, at the little hotel 

where she was spending the winter. They had 

taken a very decided fancy to Mrs. Ashburnham 

from the November day when, heralded by the 

outpourings of Mildred’s enthusiasm, she had 

appeared on their horizon. Her grace and 

287 


288 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

charm, her evident homesickness, had aroused 
everything that was most friendly and hospita¬ 
ble in Mrs. RendalUs heart; while the latter 
fact, although it appeared incomprehensible, 
had made her feel almost responsible. She 
knew from Mildred’s letters that Mrs. Ash- 
burnham was an American, born in New Eng¬ 
land, yet she found her with all the appeal of a 
stranger in an alien land. Moreover, in view 
of what Mildred had written concerning George’s 
state of mind—and also, what George himself 
had not written—Mrs. Rendall liked and was 
grateful for Sidney Ashburnham’s unconscious¬ 
ness. She had chatted and made friends quite 
as though the elder woman were not watching 
her with a maternal appraisement that took 
careful note of every word, of every glance 
and phrase. 

“Well, I must say it seems to have been a 
very nice acquaintance,” she had avowed to 
Linda as, their first call terminated, the two 
ladies descended to the street, “and very lucky 
for Mildred that they made friends over there. 
Certainly, it’s made her much less lonely—her 
letters show that plainly.” 

Linda agreed. “I don’t think Milly was 
ever crazy about the English either—do you, 
Mamma? And it’s everything to have a fellow 
countryman to talk with . . .” 

“Somehow she doesn’t seem a bit like a 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 289 

fellow countryman,” was Mrs. Kendall’s sum 
of her recent impressions. “I should never 
take her for an American—would you!” 

Linda thought she should . . . pointing to the 
incontrovertible evidence of Mrs. Ashburnham’s 
taste in dress. 

‘‘Do you think she—thinks of George!” came 
in a little solicitous burst from the older woman. 

“How can I tell, dear—at this stage! She’s 
had an English husband and perhaps she pre¬ 
fers them ...” 

Mrs. Kendall was shocked that Linda could 
suppose anyone would prefer an English hus¬ 
band, when she might have an American one 
who happened to be George. At that moment, 
it had seemed unwise to pursue the subject 
and unfair perhaps to her son—so she had 
parted from Linda without further speech and 
even tried not to think about it while hastening 
to her appointment at the office of the Societe 
des Amis de France. Her last glimmer on the 
matter, before being totally immersed in the 
business of her Committee, was that m the 
weeks before them she had time doubtless to 
discover what Sidney’s attitude toward George 
really was, and to form her own ideas by it. 

It was of this first visit and what she thought 
then, that Mrs. Kendall’s mind was occupied 
on the day three months later when we find 
her about to repeat it. Had she discovered 



290 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


Sidney’s attitude? Was she in fact any nearer 
to discovering it than she had been that first 
day? She had slipped into her hand-bag, her 
best one with the gold monogram, a cablegram 
whose arrival that morning had relit the fires 
of speculation, and she decidedly could not 
answer these questions as she would have 
wished. Much had happened during those three 
months—more than we can see through Mrs. 
Kendall’s eyes alone, but which must be sketched 
if what her eyes saw is to become plain to ours. 
The acquaintance had ripened into sincere and 
spontaneous liking on both sides. She had had 
Sidney at Hempstead and Linda had taken her 
motoring to Lenox. They had both given din¬ 
ners for her; the Corbitts had asked her to the 
opening night of the Opera. The friendship had 
reached that definite stage, when Sidney would 
ask Linda’s aid in the matter of choice among 
the innumerable small shops just off the Avenue, 
and when she was just as sure of her welcome if 
she telephoned her suggested arrival at Long 
Island for the week-end, as they were if they 
telephoned a suggested luncheon for the Mon¬ 
day dedicated to shopping in town. Yet with 
all this frankness of cordiality, Mrs. Rendall 
found herself still nervously wondering if this 
really was to be the daughter-in-law whose com¬ 
ing into life she dreaded almost as much as she 
desired. 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 291 

Much as she liked Sidney, she could not feel 
sure how Sidney was going to fit in with the 
dislikes and the ideals of the Kendall family 
. . . They had been so lucky in Linda’s hus¬ 
band—even to his preferring golf to tennis and 
his hatred of hotel life and sugared grape- 
• fruit! They could not hope to be so fortunate in 
George’s wife. Suppose she should turn out 
to be crazy about travelling . . . she did seem 
to have the loose foot! Mrs. Kendall yielded to 
nobody in her love and admiration for the 
Allies in general and France in particular, and 
yet she worried herself to death over the thought 
of a daughter-in-law, who might desire to live 
somewhere else than Hempstead, L. I. When 
she confided this to Linda, even her daughter’s 
4 'Mamma, you are really too absurd!” had not 
caused her to do more than smile sympatheti¬ 
cally at herself. 

Oddly enough, the one thing she didn’t waste 
any time thinking about at all, was whether 
Mrs. Ashburnham was rich or poor. She rather 
supposed her to be the latter and she took 
reticence on the subject of means entirely for 
granted. Linda, who was younger and there¬ 
fore wiser—at least in her own opinion—con¬ 
fided to her husband that her mother’s indiffer¬ 
ence in this respect was astonishing, when one 
reflected that George’s firm must have been 
seriously hit by the War and his absence and 



292 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


all; and that it would be years before George 
could hope to get back to his previous com¬ 
fortable income! At the same time that she 
was salving her worldly wisdom by these re¬ 
marks, Linda knew perfectly well what the an¬ 
swer was going to be and rejoiced in its loyal 
sentimentality. She decidedly wanted Tom to 
reply, as he promptly did, that she ought to be 
ashamed of herself for a hard little beast, 
and that her mother was perfectly right and 
that he guessed that George hadn’t wasted his 
time, before the War, and that the firm could 
stand his marriage all right, all right! 

The smile that accompanied this rebuke was 
the one with which an American husband is 
very apt to receive observations of cold finan¬ 
cial prudence from what he holds to be the 
idealistic half of the matrimonial circle. Linda 
adored him the more for it. But she really did 
have what her husband admiringly termed “a 
head on her shoulders,” and her prudence and 
foresight had their sources in a definite effi¬ 
ciency. She was therefore very glad indeed 
when he reminded her that Mrs. Ashburnham 
had come over to New York on business con¬ 
nected with a majority interest in a stock com¬ 
pany of which Harrison Laub had been the 
manipulator, and that Peter Sampson had hinted 
that the matter was likely to turn out very well 
for her. More he could not say, though more 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 293 

he knew; but Linda felt that her little spasm of 
materialism had not been without its results. 

So much for the Rendalls and their attitude. 
That they should be, in their own way, so much 
more occupied with Sidney Ashburnham than 
she with them, was, after all, quite natural in 
view of the various readjustments, illusions 
and disillusions, which are the lot of every one 
who has been absent from home for any length 
of time. She had found things so different— 
so very different from what she had expected. 
Not Linda whom she came to like, for her clever¬ 
ness and poise, quite as well as her warm- 
hearted little sister . . . not Mrs. Rendall, 

whom she speedily loved, while yet puzzled by 
the social omnipresence of the American mother. 
She had dined with Mrs. Sampson, lunched 
with Mrs. Fessenden, whose son was Peter’s 
partner, and taken tea with Mrs. McClmtock, 
the maternal relative of the third member of 
the firm. Trying to parallel her experiences, 
she could not but remember that, for all she 
ever heard of them, the Englishmen she knew 
might well be motherless. It took time for her 
to grasp this essential difference between Eng¬ 
lish and American friendship: that the latter 
includes one’s family while the formei doesn t 
the American expects his women folk to know 
his women friends, the Englishman expects the 

reverse. 


294 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

No, it was not these kind, cordial people in 
whom she felt any lack; while, as for Peter 
Sampson, he had been a joy. From that moment 
on the dock when the voice with the twang in 
it had said: “A. is for Ashburnham, I think 
and she had turned where she stood so for¬ 
lornly by her trunks to meet his greeting, 
Sidney had made friends at once with this 
boyish, understanding, red-headed man. The 
very way in which he replied to her protesting 
surprise that he should take so much trouble 
—the very accent in which he said: “Why of 
course, I’d have to come to meet you!” had 
been a revelation. She had forgotten the habits 
of her countrymen indeed! 

Thereafter, as she told Mrs. Rendall, every¬ 
thing was made easy and her trunks, her hotel, 
her taxi and her luncheon had become steps 
in a well-ordered routine under the rulings of 
a minor Providence. The baggage, most of 
which had seemed hopelessly buried in the 
bowels of the ship, suddenly appeared, was ex¬ 
amined and was dismissed. She had said good¬ 
bye to Fallon who had been a fellow-voyager 
and a surprising one, especially since the day 
before landing when she had been called upon 
to refuse his proposal of marriage—and had 
bumped and rattled off beyond the barbed wire 
barriers into the tremendous current of New 
York. And all the while the red-headed man 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 295 

had said slangy, smiling things, surveying her 
with friendly hazel eyes. 

Regarding the business matter which had 
brought her to America, she needed no more 
than one talk to feel convinced that George 
Rendall had chosen a wise counsellor for her. 
Few people know that ruthless, superstitious, 
corrupt, generous, materialistic and romantic 
world as Peter Sampson knew it, or were better 
fitted temperamentally to succeed in it. Him¬ 
self a poor lad and his career wholly self-made, 
his success had been due to energy, tact and 
imagination, rather than to any special knowl¬ 
edge or remarkable determination; and he still 
loved a business fight for its own sake better 
than anything else on earth. It is true that he 
presented that special paradox of the American 
lawyer, by which he combines the highest pro¬ 
fessional ideals with the most naively cynical 
dodges for it is paradox to find the admirable 
Peter Sampson, temperate, hard-working, un¬ 
selfish fellow, devoted son and brother—yet ever 
the cold-blooded exponent of a business theory 
which was a little more predatory than that of 
the late Captain Kidd. The structure of legis¬ 
lation demanded by democracy had become so 
complicated that the brains of democracy must 
be devoted to beating or escaping it, hence 
the new duty of the lawyer was to utilize or 
to evade the law. 


296 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

All this had been to Sidney nothing but an 
additional interest, and she had often dilated on 
it to Mrs. Rendall and Linda, with sparkling 
amusement. What she had not dwelt on were 
her disillusions and disappointments, of which 
Mr. Hansell her trustee, formed, perhaps, the 
chief. Six years ago — Sidney recalled with 
amazement—she had regarded Mr. Hansell as 
an important personage, solid, considerable, 
the embodiment of business sagacity—her young 
ideal of a man of the world. When he arrived 
at her hotel in response to her telegram, he 
turned out to be a timid, elderly, country lawyer, 
already mentally declining and years ago shriv¬ 
elled up and left behind in the race. His man¬ 
ner, his clothes, his combination of cocksureness 
and hesitation, his bewildered distrust of her 
knowledge and of the world which she had won 
for herself—these separated them far more than 
the Atlantic Ocean had done. Her develop¬ 
ment, her work, her marriage had simply re¬ 
moved her to another planet, although for his 
kindness of welcome, she must like him as 
before. 

Moreover, it became evident after ten min¬ 
utes’ conversation that he was unequal to the 
situation which had arisen in regard to her 
business affairs—unequal to it and afraid of 
it and longing to be released from the worry 
of it. He kept wiping his forehead and saying: 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 297 

\ 

“All this has been a great responsibility; it 
has been very hard on me, my dear,” and 
Sidney could only agree that it had been very 
hard, and, sympathize and reassure this old 
friend as best she might. Meanwhile her clear 
sense showed her that she could handle it far 
better without Mr. Hansell, that her knowledge 
of affairs far exceeded Mr. HanselPs, and that 
whatever was to be done must be done by Peter 
Sampson and herself. Her trustee spent a 
pleasant day or two in New York, talking over 
old times, and they had a business conference 
during which Peter Sampson handled him beau¬ 
tifully. Mr. Hansell was reassured at finding 
her affairs in such competent hands—as he told 
them both—and he drifted contentedly back to 
his Massachusetts home, immensely relieved 
that he was not to be asked to do anything diffi¬ 
cult or complicated. As the door closed behind 
him, Sidney and Peter exchanged glances and 
Peter said, “ Poor—old—lady !’’ in a tone of 
deep commiseration. 


CHAPTEE XXX 


Once Mr. Hansell had been safely eliminated, 
Peter Sampson began, as he said, to enjoy him¬ 
self; his enjoyment consisting in the opportunity 
which Mrs. Ashburnham’s affairs afforded him 
of pitting his own wits against those of Mr. 
Harrison Laub and Mr. Dennis Haggerty—in 
other words against the partnership of German 
merchant and Irish politician—which to Peter’s 
mind formed an union to which America owed 
many of her troubles. There was a great deal 
more than just business in all this, as he ex¬ 
plained to his client during their many con¬ 
versations. 

“Whether it’s dyes, or chemicals, or food, or 
metals doesn’t matter,” Peter observed, “the 
pair of them simply intends to make us pay 
them back for what they’ve lost in the War 
. . . Laub, of course, was much too clever 
to identify himself with that Dernburg busi¬ 
ness ... he doesn’t care about Germany as 
he cares about Laub ... all the same, he’s 
figuring to make us pay for the loss of a per¬ 
fectly good plant in Ludwigshafen and his 
mother’s estate in Frankfurt . . . So he’s just 
keeping quiet, subscribing to the Bed Cross 

298 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 299 

and waiting to develop a nice little business in 
Foreign Exchange and foodstuffs . . . and how 
is anybody to stop him, I’d like to know?” 

“And how about Haggerty?” said Sidney, 
deeply interested. 

“Well—I’m more afraid of Haggerty on your 
account than of Laub,” Peter confessed. “You 
see, he lost a brother in the Irish uprising and 
it has made him white-hot against England, 
and your husband was an English officer. He’ll 
never settle—never in this world . . .No: Laub 
is our chance because he’s more vulnerable 
Haggerty cares more about his feelings than 
his bank account . . .he’s the kind that would 
spend his last cent in order to keep you from 
making any . . . But I hear—y’know, there are 
ways of hearing, that Haggerty expects to run 
over to Holland the first chance he gets to see 
about some mighty profitable contracts—so I 
think we’ll just wait till he’s safe on board 
before we make any proposition . . • Lots of 
things to see and do here, Mrs. Ashburnham, 
and you’re pretty comfortable?” 

He smiled on her, glancing about the room, 
but, though Sidney assured him that she was 
entirely comfortable, she did not smile back. 
Instead, her brows drew together as if in 
thought. Mr. Sampson continued: 

“Y’see—it’s poor policy to hurry these things 
and you’ve a considerable sum at stake . . . 




300 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


Under the laws of New York, our friend can 
do a good deal of juggling with your interest in 
that company until by the end of the reorgani¬ 
zation, it’ll be so small you won’t recognize 
it . . .1 know for a fact that he never ex¬ 
pected the owner to turn up at all—he looks 
upon that stock as his own already-” 

“I see.” 

“ There are some things he may try on that 
will give us our chance . . . He expects you 
to settle with him on his own terms, and, if 
we had lany other cards, I would try a bargain 
with him, but you see we haven’t—as it is, 
we’ve no hope but the courts . . . only that 
the public isn’t so fond of these German deals 
as it used to be and that Laub has to be careful 
on account of his contracts . . . ” 

“Contracts?” she repeated reflectively . . . 
“what sort of contracts?” 

“Oh food-stuffs and supplies generally. I 
guess they’re English and French—but Hagger¬ 
ty is far too sharp to land in England, on ac¬ 
count of the Irish business—he’ll try and work 
them from Holland.” 

“And you say they’re profitable?” 

“You bet they are!” 

“More than my interest—if he gets it?” 

“Lord, yes!—four or five times more. Of 
course they are more trouble from his point of 
view—just as they are more important. As 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 301 

I’ve been told they’ve got to get past an English 
Committee . . 

“The War Trade Advisory Committee,” said 
Mrs. Ashburnham quietly. 

“Is that its name!” he stared at her—“well, 
anyway—to get back to the reorganization 

“Wait a minute.” She sat very still in her 
chair but her gesture checked the speaker, who 
saw that her expression was earnestly concen¬ 
trated . . . “I’m rather interested in Mr. 

Laub’s contracts. What I want to know is 
why should they get by the War Trade Advisory 

Committee!” 

“Eh, what!” said Peter. 

“Why shouldn’t they get turned down by the 
War Trade Advisory Committee!” 

“You mean-” 

Sidney arose, went to her desk and returned 
with certain papers in her hand. “The Chair¬ 
man of that Committee,” she remarked evenly, 
standing in front of Peter, “is Sir Thomas 
Easterly. I was his confidential secretary for 
nearly three years. His mania is naturalized 
Germans getting back into trade . . . There s a 
letter from him written when I left ...” She 
selected one. “You can decide by that whether 
he’d pay any attention to me. Another mem¬ 
ber is his friend Lord Waveney—he’s—an in¬ 
timate friend of mine. There’s one of his let¬ 
ters.” She handed it to him. Peter threw away 




802 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


his cigarette with an exclamation that was al¬ 
most a shout. 

“By Jove—Mrs. Ashburnham—by Jove!’’ he 
repeated . . . “and I was too dumb for a 
minute ... by Jove, you’ve got it . . . we’ve 
got it! It’s beautiful . . . it’s too beautiful 
for words. When the right moment comes . . .” 

“When the right moment comes . . . perhaps 
you will find we have something to bargain with 
. . . that’s all!” And her face smiled at the 
sudden seriousness of his. 

The result of this conference had been the 
despatch of a very carefully thought-out letter 
from Sidney to Sir Thomas—and the insertion 
of a would-be careless postscript in a couple 
of others. Peter was radiant only for a time, 
because the chance of settlement for what he 
called “some real money” had the effect of 
raising the importance of the whole affair in his 
eyes, and “real money” was the only thing that 
ever made Peter truly serious. As for Mrs. 
Ashburnham, she must settle herself to a period 
of waiting . . . conscious that her counsel’s 
attitude both toward her and toward her busi¬ 
ness had vastly heightened in consideration. 
Her mind at times could not but dream over the 
prospect of comfort and leisure which this hope 
of an additional income brought her . . . and 
Waveney’s complete ignorance of it, she hugged 
to herself with joy. He seemed to take her 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 303 

disappointment in the affair for granted and 
made it the occasion of a letter whose deep and 
intense feeling caused her cheeks to burn. 

Meanwhile another person had entered tran¬ 
quilly into a period of waiting—the same type 
of waiting that is done by a cat when he settles 
down before a mouse hole. Mr. Harrison Laub 
had been extremely annoyed, jolted in Peter’s 
parlance, when he heard that the owner of a 
certain interest in a certain company had ar¬ 
rived in New York and had employed as her 
counsel, the firm of Sampson, McClintock and 
Fessenden, with whom he had had trouble before. 
Not only was Peter the type of antagonist 
most to be dreaded, because he hides his moves 
under a cloak of evasive good humour, but he 
was also counsel to a banking house which 
more than any other in Wall Street had op¬ 
posed the plans of Laub and Haggerty. Mr. 
Laub therefore had been obliged to change his 
tactics—which he was too German to like doing. 
There had been the usual interviews between 
Peter and himself—during which both of them 
had been very bluff and frank indeed . . . and 
Laub had offered to buy out the Ashburnham 
interest at a figure which Peter had merely 
waved aside under the offer of a cigar. 

There the matter rested for many weeks . . . 
for so many indeed that Mr. Laub began to 
reflect that Sampson was by no means so 


304 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


energetic and sharp as formerly. The influence 
of Mason & Co. in regard to certain loans might 
have been felt quite disagreeably, whereas it 
had not been felt at all . . . Undoubtedly, if 
he simply dragged it on long enough, the lady 
would get tired waiting for her money and Peter 
for his fee . . . 

But Laub was by no means a stupid man— 
his career showed that—and therefore the Janu¬ 
ary day on which he was handed a cablegram 
from his partner, the exceedingly disagreeable 
shock it caused him by no means blinded his 
eyes. This cablegram was not long and it was 
white-hot. It stated that for some unaccount¬ 
able reason their agents refused to sign, or 
even to consider signing, their agreed contracts. 
So far as Haggerty could discover, some hostile 
and powerful English influence had been at 
work black-listing the firm, and so infecting 
with suspicion the Dutch and French, that they 
refused to do business until their doubts had 
been removed. Haggerty added that it was up 
to Laub to find out what all this meant. 

The recipient of this message, standing very 
precisely dressed by his desk, read it twice and 
then took off his eye-glasses and stretched forth 
his hand to the telephone. He did not have to 
find out ... he knew. 

A high degree of complex evolution has pro¬ 
duced in the American business man a trained 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE S05 

specialist, impeccable in his particular branch 
of psychology, while handling his work in a ro¬ 
mantic, not to say artistic, manner. Stevenson 
alone among moderns has touched on this, and 
Stevenson would have delighted in Peter Samp¬ 
son. He handled the interview with Mr. Laub 
superbly, revealing to his antagonist in glimpses, 
as it were, the illimitable possibilities of injury 
to the plans of himself and partner which were 
likely to ensue unless he did the proper thing 
by Peter’s client; while at the same time he 
succeeded in opening to Laub’s imagination the 
profits that these contracts might eventually 
bring—in such a manner as to minimize the 
sum she asked for by comparison. While he 
frightened Laub pretty thoroughly in the deli¬ 
cate operation of laying bare the other’s finan¬ 
cial resources and showing them to be inade¬ 
quate to survive the loss of these contracts, 
he also managed to make it plain that the stock 
deal might well be jettisoned to save a situation 
which promised—unless interfered with—to be 
more profitable than Laub had ever even 
dreamed. The result was that two hours later 
he walked out of Laub’s office with a smile on 
his face, and a verbal agreement to settle on 
terms for which he might well be proud. 

Then came the day, a month later, which was 
to hold the final act of this drama. Sidney long 
remembered that hour in Mr. Laub’s office the 



306 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

bright, hard cold without; the icy canyon below 
the windows, choked with noontide crowds and 
resounding to newsboy voices; Peter, smiling and 
jolly; Laub, precise, formal and steelly; herself 
a little doubtful and more than a little excited. 
Vague pictures arose in her inward vision, 
maintained themselves, clear and detailed, for 
a breath and then vanished ... a curious 
series . . . Mildred’s face, Dora’s, full of 

respectful joy, Waveney’s, and last and most 
persistent of all—that softly coloured and book- 
lined room in Smith Square with the two of 
them seated by the fire together in perfect 
friendship . . . Was it after all to be her privi¬ 
lege to give that room back to him, exorcised 
of the evil spirit which had filled it with such 
a bitter memory? 

She signed her name here and there where 
they told her . . . Very little was said until 
she was in the act of drawing on her gloves 
again. Then Laub, with that faint thickening of 
an accent which marred his careful speech, ad¬ 
dressed her: 

“Perhaps—now that all is settled already and 
one may speak more freely—perhaps Mrs. Ash- 
burnham will not mind telling me who her 
friends are on the other side, who came so 
promptly to her assistance?” 

“Ah, but—they didn’t know, of course, that it 
was coming to my assistance-” 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 307 

“In that case it is all the more remarkable 
and my curiosity is permitted ?” 

Sidney had-a feeling that Peter Sampson’s 
solemn expression meant he would rather she 
didn’t gratify Mr. Laub’s curiosity; but her 
judgment was different. She saw no object in 
making enemies and certainly Laub was a good 
loser. So she replied: “You mean Sir Thomas 
Easterly, I think? I was his private secretary 
for three years and he is the Chairman of the 
War Trade Advisory Committee.” 

Mr. Lamb threw up his hands with an ex¬ 
pressive gesture and made her a slight bow. 

“It is always you ladies . . .’’he said, “you 
are always successful . ... always! But now 
you are satisfied, eh? Are you not? You have 
had your own terms, you will remember that 
I hope—when you next write your friend, the 
eminent Sir Thomas Easterly?” 

She assured him that a letter had already 
been drafted, removing so far as her own knowl¬ 
edge extended, any doubt as to the motives of 
himself and his firm. Mr. Laub took occasion 
to remark that it had been bad enough to have 
one’s loyalty under suspicion on account of the 
accident of birth, and it was surely unjust to 
perpetuate these ill-feelings to poison the era of 
good faith which he saw dawning for the world’s 
trade . . . Sidney shook hands with him on this 
admirable sentiment, and, as he accompanied 


308 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

her affably to the elevator, she thought that 
the anxious gleam of his eye-glasses was some¬ 
what lessened. 

They descended many, many stories . . . 
Peter was joyously whistling under his breath, 
and Sidney ifelt calm and quiet, although she 
knew that she emerged upon the street having 
been made quite reasonably comfortable for all 
the rest of her life. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


Now with all these occurrences, Mrs. Rendall— 
whom we have left for some time past in the 
train on her way to New York from Hempstead 
—had been made perfectly acquainted; having 
learned them from Sidney in joyful gushes over 
the telephone and from Sidney’s counsel by 
means of his friend Corbitt. This was to be, 
in truth, a visit of congratulation, the joy of 
which she fully expected to heighten by means 
of the cablegram she had not forgotten to tuck 
into her handbag and which contained nothing 
less than the important news of Mildred’s im¬ 
minent arrival. Not only her happiness at the 
thought of holding dear, brave, lonely Mildred 
in her arms again, was keen for its own sake, 
but because it was a portent of the peace she 
had hardly yet believed in. Mildred’s return 
in safety was an earnest of George’s and 
meant the recapture of those old days when 
the shadow of European warfare never dark¬ 
ened their small individual happiness. And 
now perhaps that circle of family life, was to 
be strengthened by another link though Mrs. 
Rendall was average enough to undergo actually 
a momentary shrinking as of jealous dread- 

309 


310 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


when she anticipated how her own feelings were 
going to he shared by Mrs. Ashburnham . . . 
Indeed, as she took the elevator to that lady’s 
parlor, she really had to tell herself not to 
be absurd. 

Sidney was waiting for her friend ♦ . . 

waiting it would seem in considerable impatience 
and welcomed her entrance and her greeting, 
“Well, dear child!” with a sudden outpouring 
of affection, which was somehow or other start¬ 
ling. Mrs. Rendall was enveloped in an em¬ 
brace and her wraps laid aside—with a warmth 
of cordiality which she had not before asso¬ 
ciated with Sidney’s calm reticence of be¬ 
haviour. Her thought was that either Sidney 
must be very fond of money; or else that she 
had been much more in need of it and anxious 
concerning it than they had supposed, since 
this good fortune appeared to uplift and excite 
her to such a degree . . . 

This was to be, however, but the first of her 
surprises. The cablegram, which she produced 
so gaily and proudly—handing it to Sidney with 
—“Now what do you think of that —dear? 
Isn’t it splendid?” was read and exclaimed 
over by the other—with joy, it is true, and with 
enthusiasm—but still with an air that it was a 
matter entirely outside . . . Mrs. Ashburn¬ 
ham’s dark eyes, were filled at the moment with 
some vision which had nothing whatever to do 


THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 311 

with Mildred Kendall. She repeated that it was 
splendid — splendid — delightful — and then she 
hurried on: 

“ And I too—you see—I too have had a cable¬ 
gram this morningl” 

“From Mildred?” Mrs. Rendall asked puz¬ 
zled, finding a chair. 

“No; not from Mildred . . . ” she laughed 
happily . . . “from an even more important 

person than Mildred!” 

Then it all came out in a flood—a flood which 
had broken all barriers and poured in the hap¬ 
piest confidence into the keeping of this elder 
woman of whose sympathy one must feel as¬ 
sured. Mrs. Ashburnham was radiant—her face 
had regained shining youth—her eyes glowed 
. . . she talked—now pacing the room—now 
sitting beside Mrs. Rendall and holding her 
hand, and as she talked she beheld nothing but 
happiness. The other need only sit passive 
and listen . . . occupied the while in readjust¬ 
ing herself to the undoubted fact that the Eng¬ 
lishman who was landing to-morrow in New 
York, was going to marry Sidney, and that they 
had cared for each other a long time . . . This 
was the suprising news with all its implications* 
not least of which was the removal of this 
new friend from their particular group and her 
disappearance into a world of which they had 
small knowledge and no experience. This was 



312 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

the news with which she must greet Mildred 

—while as for George- 

If Sidney had been in the mood to observe 
it, she would have seen Mrs. Kendall’s face 
acquire a new look. The mouth still steadfastly 
smiled, but the eyes lost their youthful, humour¬ 
ous alertness, and became wise and weary and 
almost old. It was the mother-face, that comes 
of having learned the total unexpectedness of 
youth. She was one whom Life could no longer 
surprise and one who knew that whatever parcel 
the future may bring us, disappointment is cer¬ 
tain to be the cord that ties it . . . At the 
moment, she remembered that she was fond, 
very fond of Sidney Ashburnham. So she 
pressed the girl’s cold hands as she listened to 
the story; she made sympathetic sounds at its 
darker crises; she smiled with the other’s smile 
at its radiant prospect of joy. She heard how 
wonderful Adrian was, how good, how wise; 
and agreed it would be a privilege to become 
the wife of such a man. But she made no in¬ 
dependent observation until Sidney, whose heart 
was full and running over into affectionate im¬ 
pulses . . . must needs choose and read to her a 
portion of Adrian’s letters, so that her friend 
might see for herself what he really was. Mrs. 
Kendall’s comment then was interesting: “But 
how very American he sounds!” she said sur- 
prisedly. Sidney smilingly agreed. “I think 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 313 

he has grown more American since knowing 
me,” she suggested, and Mrs. Rendall guessed 
that it must be so. Shortly afterwards she 
pleaded an engagement. On parting, she kissed 
the younger woman and wished her joy with 
the sincerest warmth and made her promise 
to bring him to Hempstead . . . although, while 
her voice gave the invitation, she felt that she 
didn’t see Lord Waveney, somehow, at Hemp¬ 
stead . . . Sidney’s happy voice responded to 
remind her that they would both be on the dock 
next morning to meet the travellers, and then 
the door closed. The elder woman found her¬ 
self once more alone, descending in the elevator 
and leaving Mrs. Ashburnham in the upper 
storey. It seemed, somehow, just the place 
where one would leave Mrs. Ashburnham! 

Mrs. Rendall came to the hotel doorway and 
stood there undecidedly, looking up and down 
the street. She felt a trifle dazed . . . the 
mental shift had been somewhat sudden. To 
have gone through all the maternal emotions 
involved in adjusting one’s mind to a certain 
sequence of events, only to find that it was the 
wrong sequence—was a jar—decidedly a jar 
—and it took her breath. She did not clearly 
know what she felt as yet—she was still con¬ 
scious only of that fundamental amazement. 
Gradually, as she stood in the doorway, her 
thoughts began to take shape and rise one after 
another to be dealt with . . . 



314 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 

Mildred’s disappointment was going to be 
very keen—on her own account and on her 
brother’s. As for George—who could say? His 
mother could only hope that this had not gone 
too deep with him—after all, she told herself 
reassuringly, he could not have seen so very 
much of the lady! Peter Sampson, too— it was 
almost comic to reflect how he was going to 
feel. All that money! She could only smile, 
ruefully enough, at the recollection of Peter’s 
expression when he told them the amount and 
added that he knew old George had enough— 
but then one could never tell when capital was 
going to come in handy . . . Mrs. Rendall re¬ 
membered that she had rebuked him for the 
remark with an “Oh hush, Peter—how can 
you?” and felt that she must be prepared hence¬ 
forth to sustain and to support herself by that 
attitude. 

The day was crisp and very cold. Early 
shadows had begun to creep across the street 
and the acrid note of the city’s clamour was 
deadened. Mrs. Rendall still lingered in the 
doorway and her thoughts enfolded her. The 
door-boy noticed the smart middle-aged figure 
. . . he supposed the lady was waiting for 
her car. The lady was meanwhile harkening 
to inward voices . . . her face was absorbed. 

Well, this, so far as the Rendalls were con¬ 
cerned, was the end of Mrs. Ashburnham . . . 



THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 315 

the end that is to say of her being associated 
in any intimate or vital sense with the future of 
their lives. No doubt they would see her at 
intervals . . but one knew the world and one 

knew how little that could mean . . . She would 
vanish beyond their horizon in a rosy cloud of 
happiness. One pictured their seeing her photo¬ 
graph some day in the “Illustrated English 
News’’ and saying to each other “We knew 
her once!” and perhaps taking pains to hide 
the paper from George . . . The mother drew 
a sharper breath for she felt a pang of the 
pain that was going to come to George. 

Pain, then, and disappointment were the chief 
results of their having known Mrs. Ashburn- 
ham; and Mrs. Rendall reflected that pain and 
disappointment were almost always the result, 
when one’s path was crossed by one of those 
picturesque people. She should have expected 
it; it was the price to be paid for the excitement 
of their friendship . . . and most people held 
that this was worth the price. The Sidneys 
of this world keep alive its romance and often 
furnish the only means which may link the grey 
rest of us, however vicariously, with its larger 
movements, its passions and its achievements. 
This thought drew Mrs. Rendall to wonder, if, 
after the shock was past, she were not going 
to feel relieved . . . The unknown is to be 
dreaded, however picturesque . . . The alien is 


316 THE HOUSE ON SMITH SQUARE 


always the alien, and she had never felt that 
Sidney was typically American . . . 

Evidently the shock was beginning to pass or 
she would not have thought of this or of its 
corollary—the letter she had just heard read 
aloud. If Sidney was not typically American, 
was this man she proposed to marry typically 
English? Certainly not, according to Mrs. Ren- 
dall’s view . . . The note struck in the letter 
had been intensely new to her. Where and 
how had he learned it—this national note, of 
which people like the Rendalls are so intensely 
proud, and which they knew, under all the sur¬ 
face noise and dissonance, to be the deeper 
choral of the Republic? Had he learned it from 
Sidney, or in lesser degree from Mildred and 
from George? Was this the real meaning of the 
Odyssey of these tremendous years? 

Yes: the shock had passed and she recognized 
her final mood for one of relief—a relief that 
was coloured by a very special sense of fitness. 
Sidney and Adrian—that was an alliance which, 
symbolic as well as actual, might mean much 
toward the way of solution for the troubles of 
a faltering world . . . 

Mrs. Rendall left the shelter of the doorway 
and began to walk away from the hotel down 
the sunny side of the street. 


THE END 














































































































































































































